A vet clinic in northern Tasmania fears proposed changes to after-hours animal care services will lead to clinics being "swamped" during daytime hours, with stress being added to vets who remain on call out of hours.
The Veterinary Board of Tasmania has proposed new standards that change the requirement of vets to provide an arrangement for after-hours or emergency care from a "standard of veterinary practice" to being "encouraged" to share the load with other practices.
It is a measure Launceston vet Dr David Allen said was worrying because of the current burden of after-hours work.
"Our great concern is that the vet board is looking at removing the requirement for vets to be on call after hours," he said.
"A lot of vets already are saying they don't want to do after hours. If the vets had the choice, they wouldn't be on call".
A culture of burnout and fatigue has been normalised among Australian and New Zealand veterinary practitioners, according to a study published this month in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science.
Hobart is the only location in the state with a dedicated after-hours emergency vet service.
In all other parts of the state, vets at regular clinics can be on call and many share out-of-hours duties to lessen the burden on any one clinic.
The new draft standard gives a vet the option of providing no after-hours care. It states:
"Where there is no option for co-operative arrangements between practices, the veterinary practitioner is expected to exercise their judgement regarding the wellbeing for themselves and their employees and not put themselves or their employees at risk."
In a statement, the board said the draft standards aimed to clarify the "appropriate standard expected of a registered veterinary practitioner".
"While the board understands that there has been some attention paid to the standard relating to the provision of veterinary services outside of normal hours, consideration of the draft standards document in its entirety is encouraged."
Dr Allen is concerned current pressures on clinics will lead them to decide not to offer after-hours service altogether, a move he said was not the answer to alleviating stressors in the industry.
"What [the vet board] is saying is that people shouldn't be on call for their mental health, and we get that, but we don't think just saying 'don't be on call' is the answer, because we will continue to be on call until it all comes crashing down," he said.
"The mental health of vets not on-call will certainly improve. However, the mental health of the vets who continue to offer an after-hours service because we think morally that's what we should do — to look after people's patients and our mental health — those remaining on-call vets will really suffer because the workload will increase."
Dr Allen believes providing access to after-hours care should be mandatory, and that clinics should be made to band together to share on-call duties instead of just being encouraged to, as per the draft changes.
"For us the solution is really going the other way, not saying 'you do not need to be on call'," he said.
Dr Allen said the potential of other practices removing their after-hours care would leave them with difficult decisions to make — like turning away patients that come to them because their own vet doesn't provide after-hours care, or leaving them to make the journey down to Hobart, where there is a dedicated after-hours practice.
"Whether we just say, 'I'm sorry you don't come to our practice, it's not our problem', it's very hard for us to do that, so there's a massive amount of stress that will be involved," he said.
"The bad scenario will be that night after night, doing our own calls is fine.
"But then we're doing calls of other vets who aren't doing on-calls, and eventually the mental stress on our vets is that we won't be able to field a team during a particular night."
He said if that was the case, "in Launceston, there may not be any vet who will be able to see an injured or sick animal that night".
"So your only option then is to drive two hours down to Hobart to the after-hours centre … then the concern is that some of those [animal] patients may be so critical that they're not going to make it."
The veterinary board was approached for further comment.
The board is receiving submissions from the public until December 21, extending the closing date from December 7.
