Bemidji Veterinary Hospital to Begin Urgent Care Hours on Saturdays

When your pet is sick and hurting, and there’s nothing you can do to help them, how does it make you feel? The folks at Bemidji Veterinary Hospital never want pet owners to have to answer that question, which is why they are opening a new urgent care on Saturdays.

“[When] our pets are in pain, they’re uncomfortable, most pet parents don’t want to wait until Monday to get help,” said Bemidji Veterinary Hospital Medical Director Dr. Andy Piller. “It’s hard to see our our little furry friends and family members in pain. So it’s good to be available so they don’t have to wait all weekend to get the help that they need.”

As of December 7th, the urgent care will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. each Saturday.

“There’s been a call from the community,” said Dr. Piller. “Even petitions have been made, drafted, signed, including a Change.org petition that went all the way to the state legislature trying to get more facility help on the weekends. And we’re happy to say with our doctors here at Bemidji Vet Hospital, we’re going to expand our hours and see pets that have issues on Saturdays.”

The purpose of the veterinary urgent care is the same as urgent care is for humans – it’s for cases that can’t wait until Monday but aren’t quite extreme enough to go to the emergency room.

“A lot of [things] like vomiting, diarrhea, we’ll get some ear infections, lacerations, probably a few broken bone-type things,” said associate veterinarian Dr. Delaney Rohan. “So definitely a variety and probably a lot of just outpatient kind of care, same-day treatment type of things.”

“So the importance of that urgent care service is to provide it to communities that don’t have that generalized access to [it], and provide the service instead of driving two, three, four hours,” associate veterinarian Dr. Reid Rasmussen explained.

The idea behind opening on Saturdays was to give people access to veterinary needs outside of the average 8-5, Monday-Friday hours.

“Pets mean so much to us and they give so much to us,” added Dr. Piller, “I think it goes without saying, you know, pets just help us feel better. They lower our blood pressure. They make our lives better. It’s just so rewarding to help people with their pets.”

Although the urgent care will not allow for pre-scheduled appointments, Bemidji Veterinary Hospital asks clients to call ahead of time and let staff know that they will be coming in.