These are the nicknames that area veterinarians have for the emergency hospitals located in Kingston (KRPH) and Belleville (BRPH, or more accurately PEHCPEC). Kingston Regional Pet Hospital is an emergency facility that was started by 26 progressive area veterinarians almost 5 years ago to provide better after-hours care for their patients than could be provided in a private practice setting. Its success in the Kingston area prompted them to open another facility in Belleville (the Prince Edward and Hastings Pet Emergency Clinic) just last year. We at Hillcrest Animal Hospital were one of the original shareholders and we continue to support these facilities because of the excellent care they provide for our patients when we are closed.
No matter how good a veterinarian may be there is absolutely no way that they can provide the same level of care, or quality of care, that can be delivered within one of these hospitals. Every private veterinary practitioner has to get up the next day to see a full day of appointments, which makes it impossible to stay overnight and continuously monitor and treat emergency patients. It is also impossible to provide a high quality of care without having trained staff present to assist the veterinarian in dealing with complex emergency cases. Within these facilities are veterinarians and highly-trained technicians whose entire job is to perform these night shifts without facing regular practice the next day. They are available within these hospitals during all hours when local veterinary practices are closed, evenings, weekends and holidays.
At Hillcrest you merely have to call us after-hours using our regular phone number and your call will be routed directly to the emergency hospital in Belleville (BRPH). If you wish you can access any information you need for the BRPH by clicking the blue cross in the upper right hand corner of our webpage. This cross is present on every single page in our website in case you get lost.
The higher quality of care provided by hospitals of this type has virtually eliminated the old model of individual practices providing their own after-hours emergency service. As long as an area has a large enough population, and the area veterinarians support the facilities, they thrive and provide a level of care far beyond what a private practice can manage. The human equivalent to this is obvious, the emergency hospitals in every large population center that allow general practitioners to sleep comfortably knowing that their patients are being cared for when their offices are closed.
Like in human medicine most procedures that are done on an emergency basis are very uncommon in the life of a general practitioner. Trained emergency veterinarians and technicians will see these procedures regularly, which makes them substantially better at dealing with them properly and more successfully. Although they are obviously much more dramatic than real life the “emergency hospital” dramas on television are an example of this difference. How often do you suppose your doctor sees a patient with a gunshot wound or after a serious car accident?
With these types of facilities in our area veterinarians get to leave their hospitals at reasonable hours without worrying at all about the quality of care that their patients will receive should they become ill or injured. This allows them and their staff to be at their best to serve you during regular hospital hours.
Dr. Mike Steen
Hillcrest Animal Hospital
