Amber Matthews
I am appalled at the most recent experience I’ve had with EVAH- Kitchener. Having a sick pet is stressful enough, but your vet clinic completely ghosting you is a nightmare. After taking my cat for an annual checkup and vaccines last week, a few concerns led to doing bloodwork that diagnosed my cat with pancreatitis. They gave me pain medication and enough anti nausea to last “until the ultrasound” (5 days worth), and sent a referral to their Hamilton location for ultrasound. A few days later, I was close to running out of meds with no ultrasound date, and my cat developed raging diarrhea from one of the meds they gave. I began contacting the clinic for more meds. The receptionists will tell you “we’ll send it off to the doctor as urgent and you should hear back today”, just to appease you and get you off the phone. One even said she would “harass” the doctor to get an answer and told me to call back and harass them the next day. I then called Hamilton to follow up on the referral and was told it could be up to 6 weeks!!! So I contacted the clinic again, and paid a fee for them to fill out extra paperwork and refer me to a local vet with ultrasound, which never ended up happening. Once her meds ran out and I still had no ultrasound date, I started calling more frequently and each time, told the same thing, that they will send it off to the doctor as an urgent inquiry, and I should hear back today. And then another day passes with no answers and my cat is now suffering and out of the meds they gave her. They eventually began to completely ignore my phone calls and emails because they did not have any answers for me. When my cat began acting poorly, I finally contacted Mitchell Animal Hospital, who was able to get me in for a second opinion visit that same day, and for an ultrasound the day after. I understand EVAH is a low income vet, and they are swamped with clients. They are typically very far behind schedule and you’ll have to wait at least 30 minutes past your appointment time. However, there is never an excuse for ignoring a client and letting a pet suffer simply because the doctor doesn’t have time to review a few emails over the course of a couple days. This behaviour is quite frankly unprofessional, and a disgrace to veterinarian medicine. They may be okay for your basic spay, neuter and vaccines, but I would never recommend them for any serious or time sensitive health matters for your pet.
