My partner and I came in several nights ago with her young, sick cat, which ended up being euthanized.
Let me preface this by saying that I thought that the Veterinary Doctor on staff was helpful and compassionate, and I feel positively about all of our interactions.
However, the rest of our visit was extremely frustrating. The wait times were unbelievable, given that this took place at roughly 11pm-1am on a Sunday night, with more than just a skeleton crew staffed. I understand that there may have been things happening that we weren't aware of, but given how very little was done for our animal during that time, it seems unreasonable how long we were made to wait before seeing any staff members. It took 30 minutes to an hour just to receive an estimate on the cost of care - which was brought in by a tech who informed us that the bill for talking to the Veterinarian wasn't on there - which made me feel as though we didn't have the chance to ask any more questions, because we wouldn't be seeing her anymore. To add on to that, we weren't informed of how much our current visit was going to cost already, so we had no idea how much it was going to cost us for treatment delivered already vs. the estimate we were given. This shouldn't be something I have to go out of my way to chase after the staff to get (nor wait upwards of an hour to receive). We weren't even checked in on; we were asked to leave the door open when we wanted someone, after which a staff member would eventually wander by.
My biggest complaint in all of this is how little the techs seemed to care about the situation. They never checked in on us, and seemed like they didn't want to be there in general. I'm a medical professional myself (paramedic) so I truly understand that as a provider you're not going to feel emotionally the same as your patient does about their situation. One person's crisis is another day at work for you, and death and loss comes with the territory. However, I would have really appreciated if the techs had at least made an effort to seem empathetic towards this couple trying to decide whether or not they had to euthanize their very young cat. They were always eager to leave the room and seemed completely unfazed by what was happening. This is perfectly illustrated by one of the techs responding with a chipper, "Okay!" to my partner tearfully telling her that she was going to have to put her beloved pet down because she couldn't afford the bill for treating this particular condition. I'm still fuming at how unbelievably tone-deaf of a response that was.
I realize that having to euthanize an animal is not a situation where anyone leaves feeling good. I didn't expect them to magically make everything better. However, at the very least, I'd want to feel as though we were given all of the information we needed to make an educated decision that was the best for our pet - and done so in a supportive and helpful environment. And I do not feel like either of those conditions were met.