What happens when you have a medical emergency with your pet late at night or on the weekend when your regular veterinarian is closed? There are a lot of dangers in the desert at night…hungry predators, fast traffic, toxic substances. Plus, the normal medical conditions that can unexpectedly become life threatening.
We talked to Megan Pierce, RVT, Practice Manager at Roadrunner Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Hospital in nearby Algodones. She told us, “We are currently the only 24/7 emergency hospital in the state of New Mexico. We also recently added other specialty surgery service to our hospital. Dr. freeman and her team joined in January and has been extremely essential in in getting some of these cases taken care of.”
Roadrunner’s availability as a 24-hour emergency clinic is so rare that people bring pets from as far away as Eastern Arizona, West Texas, and Southern Colorado. Meghan said,” Options are limited for people especially on those late-night hours, so we've had people drive 6 to 8 hours to come see us and the reality of that situation is that being the only facility in the state seeing patients at that point in time is unfortunately that we have wait times that end up being fairly tremendous. If the patient is stable, we're taking in the critical patients that are actively in a potential for a fatality and so those end up occupying so much of our time that even sick patients that do need to be seen but are stable end up waiting 6 plus hours.”
We asked Megan how to avoid ending up in an emergency clinic with our pets in the middle of the night. She told us, “Definitely getting established with a primary care provider as early into the animal's life as possible. Often, we see emergencies that have worsened because they weren’t diagnosed before they become critical. Regular check-ups and vaccinations can help avoid emergency visits. For treatments of non-life-threatening issues, the general practices can generally get you in in a timelier manner, are generally cheaper, and there are less wait times. We’re here for more critical care scenarios…ingesting toxic substances, including mushrooms and foreign objects that require surgery or lifesaving procedures, attacks by animals, and pets hit by cars. We’re at the start of rattlesnake season so snake bites are also a danger.”
Roadrunner Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Hospital is at 5 Camino Karsten, Algodones, NM.
Contact them at 505.384.6420 or info@roadrunnerveter.com
We are currently the only 24/7 emergency hospital in the state of New Mexico.