Veterinarians could use rotating schedule

DEAR EDITOR:

Re: “Penticton needs 24/7 veterinarian service,” (Herald letters, Jan. 21).

It was heart-rending to read the letter of Trina Murray on finding no local veterinarian available in Penticton for an emergency at night and having to risk her life driving at 3 a.m. on icy roads to Kelowna to save her cat, who suffered agonizing pain all along the way.

By the time she found a vet that was available, the poor animal had to be euthanized. Please, veterinarians, stop treating companion animals, many of whom belong to seniors, as if they were nothing but cash cows, and show more humanity.

Healing, relieving the pain of suffering animals, is your professional duty, a duty which calls on you to put your heads and your hearts together for the purpose of drafting a schedule, which would set up a rotation system, so that there would always be a veterinarian available at night in either Penticton or Summerland.

Rene Goldman

Summerland