To review the stories see:
- Wednesday 15th August 2012 - the initial story which caused an outcry from the profession for being unbalanced and unfair, regarding industry pricing.
- Wednesday 22nd August 2012 - the followup that provided a more balanced story regarding varying prices between veterinary clinics.
The second story featured an comparison between a cheaper, high turnover veterinary clinic and a more expensive veterinary clinic.
These reports looked at what care the patient received and the associated costs. However one thing that was omitted by these reports when looking at the different veterinary clinics was the people. Are the veterinary nurses paid a living wage? What about the veterinarians - are they paying themselves a reasonable wage? Are the hours reasonable for being able to have a life outside work? Do the staff get reasonable breaks during the day? and so on.
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| Photo source: www.verso.co.nz |
The same goes for the cheap t'shirt or other item of clothing you may come across for example. If the price seems too good to be true it probably is. Someone along the way was exploited to produce it for that cost.
Remember, when making cost comparisons to not only consider the product or service quality and cost, but consider how the business looks after the people that are part of the chain the provide the product or service. If your business is ethical and looks after its staff - promote it. Let your staff tell the story. This is a marketing advantage.
Let's not just be driven by price, let's be ethical consumers, not only on environmental issues but the social issues too.
I look forward to your thoughts and feedback.
Kind Regards
Francesca
I still think the high turnover, low margin clinic in part 2 shown did not address issues like the need for some staff to be paid to do monitoring, whether there are post op pain relief options, what are their death rates etc.
ReplyDeleteAlso, does a clinic acting as a spey clinic capable of doing any orthopaedic work or more complex diagnostic cases so I wonder if that all stay onsite or goes elsewhere?
It feels like a return to the level of care we offered thirty years ago - ignorance really as we know more now. Interesting article in vetscript about spey clinics operating out of vet clinics - set days and charges. worth a read.