To Our Wonderful Clients —
As you may know, on Friday, the Provincial Government reduced the list of essential workplaces that can be open. For your information, the new and reduced list is available at the link below.
https://www.ontario.ca/page/list-essential-workplaces#section-2
Veterinary services are now limited to urgent care only. Pet and animal supplies including food and medications can also continue to be provided to you as long as there is an alternative method of sale such as curb side pick-up or delivery, except in exceptional circumstances. We have already been performing curb side pick-up and delivery.
Obviously, we are here for you and will not let any animal fare poorly, but we must operate in accordance with the government’s restrictions. We also want to maintain appropriate physical distancing and keep everyone (clients and staff) as safe as possible.
We will ensure that your animal is seen. However, the method for consultation will vary. For cases with urgent care, the animal can be brought to the clinic. If you aren’t sure whether your animal requires urgent care, please call the clinic so we can discuss with you.
For other cases, our telemedicine services are now up and running. The link is below and can be used to book online chats, telephone calls and video calls with one of our veterinarians.
In terms of specific procedures, we will not be performing any spay or neuter surgeries and elective dentals in the short term. We will keep a list and ensure that such surgeries are performed based on that list when the government revisits the list of essential workplaces.
For vaccines, our licensing body (CVO), the provincial medical association (the OVMA) and Scott Weese (a veterinary infectious disease specialist) have issued guidelines about vaccines. (Dr. Weese keeps an excellent blog — wormsandgermsblog.com.)
There are different opinions on an approach to vaccines at this time. We will consider updating puppy and kitten vaccines so they are protected from potentially fatal viruses (and would therefore qualify as urgent care). For older animals with up-to-date vaccines, we are asking people to hold off with such vaccine requests and to limit exposure of your animals to risks posed by illnesses covered by the vaccines. BAH’s position is that people are more likely to suffer (or die) from COVID-19 than they are from potential exposure to illnesses covered by vaccines (like rabies).
We will continue to dispense medications and food. The web store remains an option. We will also provide food and dispense medications with a curb side service. Finally, we offer courier service for food and medications and would actually prefer to use such delivery. As such, we are offering free courier service if your food order is over $100 and your medication order is over $200. Otherwise, a cost of $11 applies for delivery.
As we have said before, thanks for your ongoing patience during these challenging times. We will continue to update you as things change (seemingly daily). Please never hesitate to call us for clarification.
Sincerely,
Dr. Mark Dilworth