With the recent outbreaks of seasonal disease, such as Pink-eye, and Foot-rot, the clinic has experienced an inundation of clients requesting prescription medications for their cattle. So we wanted to take the opportunity to remind our clients, that we just can’t dispense these medications if we haven’t attended your property in the past 12mths. We appreciate this can be difficult for a lot of property owners, both economically and logistically. However, we wanted to try to help property owners understand the reasons behind this policy.
Veterinarians, and Veterinary clinics, are increasingly being audited for not following the prescription laws set by the Veterinary Board of NSW. And it’s not an uncommon occurrence for Veterinarian’s to be disciplined, suspended, or even de-registered for breaking these rules. Subsequently, our Vets do not want to compromise their registration they’ve worked so hard to achieve, and as a business, we obviously support our staff in relation to this.
Aside from the legal ramifications, the rules are actually there for a reason. If we have an ongoing working relationship with property owners, and regularly attend the property, this reduces the chance of mistreating and misdiagnosing conditions, and allows for better antimicrobial and prescription medicine stewardship.
From our perspective, we want to be able to provide continual Veterinary care to everyone in the community, and don’t like to decline prescription medicine requests. It often results in abuse being received by our staff, which adds to their already difficult job. Additionally, our Vets are far too busy to go out on redundant farm visits unless we can provide good value/services to the property owner.
The guidelines we have to abide by are only going to get stricter with time, so the rules are unlikely to change. We strongly recommend you plan in advance, and try to schedule an annual visit which can provide useful economic or health benefits to your operation. Good examples of these visits include annual pregnancy testing, annual bull reproductive exams, and so on.
Given these visits are often non-emergencies, we recommend you take full advantage of the discounted travel fees by booking a visit on one of our scheduled runs. We travel to our branch practice in Bulahdelah weekly. And hope to add additional runs, such as to Curricabark/Giro, once we add additional Vets in the coming months.
We appreciate this is a contentious issue for some property owners, and we hope this helps you better understand our position.