I’m writing this letter following a recent disappointing experience I had when dealing with a vet clinic in Attard.

I’m a volunteer who helps stray cats, aided by SAGS and Happy Paws. I collect injured strays and tend to their wounds until they’ve fully recovered. I also gather a large number of strays and take them to vets to be neutered, to try and regulate the huge numbers that dangerously roam the streets. On some sad occasions, when strays are suffering tremendously and nothing can be done to save them, the vets euthanise them.

Over the past years I’ve dealt with a number of conscientious vets whose fees are very reasonable when it comes to tending to stray cats. There are also some vets who don’t charge anything at all if a stray needs to be put to sleep.

Unfortunately, however, this vet clinic in Attard ripped me off completely. It happened after clinic hours, at about 9pm, when the usual vets I deal with were closed. I called the Emergency Call Centre (which gives the number of the vet on call for the night and charges a fee, which is added to your land-line bill, for its services) and was told that the only vet clinic on call for the night was in Attard.

So I drove there, a dying stray kitten beside me, and was charged an exorbitant e65 for the vet to put it to sleep – a two minute job. Since I’ve been involved in this for over three years, I knew it was a ridiculously high price to pay. Neutering a female cat costs around e50 and sometimes the operation can be long and complicated.

To add insult to injury, this vet bundled the dead kitten in the towel I had taken with me and handed her to me to dispose of myself, after warning me to disinfect my entire house since the kitten was put down because of a viral infection, which he said could be passed on to my other cats.

When a cat is euthanised, the norm is for vets to secure it in a plastic bag and send it to the incinerator. To have me dispose of this dead kitten – keeping in mind the dangers of the viral infection and my distress due to its death – was unprofessional, inhuman and dangerous, to say the least.

Besides being appalled by the vet’s disregard for both the dead kitten and me, I feel he took advantage of being the only clinic on call for the night in requesting such an exorbitant sum.

What really gets me too is that a number of the vets, who are on call via the Emergency Call Centre, on seeing me with these stray cats, tell me that these animals are not under their care and don’t tend to the emergency until they’re finished with their regular clients’ pets. On a different occasion, one vet in particular took an hour before she saw to a cat I had brought in. Why is this vet on the emergency call list if she’s going to treat the case with little or no urgency whatsoever?

When so many organisations are helping stray cats, and when so many volunteers are giving up their time – and money – to help these animals out of sheer love for them, it is such a disappointment to come across vets who abuse the system heartlessly.

I take the opportunity to thank some vets who have been a pleasure to work with and who have shown incredible kindness to these strays: Dr Duncan Chetcuti Ganado, Dr Ilanet Brandon and Dr Q. Lawson.

I’d also like to add that, even though the Emergency Call Centre comes in handy, it should also be accessible through mobile phones and not limited to land-lines, especially since most emergencies happen out on the streets where no land-line phones are available.

Joanna Pullicino