Ed Smith spoke with Dr. Bruce Ingersoll, Board Officer and Medical Director at Rochester Emergency Veterinary Services
-Dr. Ingersoll talked about how they started the process a year ago to form a nonprofit organization and how they opened their doors on February 1st, 2024
-He explained how the benefits of being a nonprofit will allow them to ensure 24/7 emergency care for pets remains available for the community.
-He said it allows them to focus on their employees, patient care and to ensure that this type of emergency care will be more stable and long lasting in our community.
-Dr. Ingersoll says since February 1st, they have served over 4,000 pets with medical care.
-They are not able to provide all the services they want to do because of a lack of space.
-They are currently running the operation out of an existing veterinary office in downtown Rochester but they are now in the process of moving to a larger facility in East Rochester. This will allow them to have more cage space, have space for more equipment, provide more types of treatments like respiratory care and provide 24/7 emergency care.
-Dr. Ingersoll says they have hired more staff but continue to hire more medical staff, especially with the larger facility they will be moving to in the next few months.
-He talked about the challenges of hiring veterinarians right now, theri is a shortage nationwide. Many retired during the pandemic. He said they do have a unique recruitment tool, if someone has recently finished veterinary school and they work for Rochester Emergency Veterinary Services for 10 years, part of their loan debt will be forgiven.
-He encouraged people to support them with donations and said they have a fundraising campaign going on to help with the new building.