The mental health crisis affecting vets

A vet killed himself after becoming increasingly upset that customers with brand-new cars parked outside his surgery wouldn't pay to help their animals, an inquest has heard.

Dr John Ellis, 35, also believed that owners were "leaving it too late to come in" with their pets, meaning nothing could be done and "he was finding that destroying", his mother, Tina Ellis, told the hearing.

Financial factors

Studies and reports have shown that suicide and mental health issues are commonplace in the industry. A 2022 study in Australia found that nearly 70% of vets have lost a colleague or peer to suicide and about six in 10 had sought professional help for their mental health. A separate study by the Australian Veterinary Association reported similar results, finding that about 67% of vets have experienced a mental health condition.

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Vets in the UK are four times as likely to die from suicide as the general public, University of Southampton research found in 2010. Financial factors "play a part" in this trend, said the BBC, as do "the pressures and long hours" of the job, "expectations of pet owners" and "exposure to trauma and frequent euthanasia".

As prices have risen, so has the pressure. Emily Volk, a vet who works nights in an emergency clinic in New Jersey, US, told the broadcaster that "you get accused of only being here for the money", and one customer called her a "thief".

Some clients also accuse vets of malpractice, which is “very rare” in reality, Dr Julie Buzby, a vet from South Carolina, told the New York Post. She said that although she understood that grieving pet owners were just "lashing out", this can be very hard on vets.

But veterinarians "often have their own money woes, too", said the broadcaster, because veterinary school is "both extremely selective and extremely expensive", meaning vets have "large debt loads relative to their earnings".

Real living nightmare

Workers at a Welsh practice owned by one of the UK's largest veterinary corporations went on strike in July, accusing their private-equity-backed owner, VetPartners, of underpaying workers and overcharging pet owners.

In the first industrial action to hit the UK veterinary sector, vets, nurses and support staff at Valley Vets in South Wales, argued that, with an estimated value of £3 billion, VetPartners "could afford to pay the real living wage of £12 an hour".

A union survey of Valley Vets staff found that 80% of them regularly borrowed money to meet basic living costs and 5% had to use food banks. "We can't afford to live" one told The Guardian, adding that "it's dehumanising and embarrassing to be put in that position when I’m giving everything I've got to the job that I do".

Another claimed that VetPartners pressured him to charge customers for every procedure and treatment, no matter how small. The company said that "providing the best possible care of pets comes above all else across our veterinary practices".

Last month VetPartners announced that it was closing all but one of its Welsh practices, reported WalesOnline.

The domestic animal care sector has been "progressively taken over by corporations" since it was deregulated in 1999, said the broadsheet, with almost 60% of UK vet surgeries now owned by six large companies. They often retain their original practice names, "leaving the public in the dark" about the new corporate owners.