(Gio Battaglia/News 8 WROC)
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — It's been just over a month since overnight emergency services for animals returned to Rochester.
Rochester Emergency Veterinary Services, located on University Avenue, said it sees hundreds of patients a week. Health professionals recognize how important their services are to the community, but say they still have a long way to go.
REVS Medical Director Bruce Ingersoll said staff have been seeing patients constantly since opening last month.
“We've been busy shift by shift. And unfortunately, we're too busy. We still have to send things to Buffalo because we don't have the capacity,” Ingersoll said.
With limited resources, Ingersoll knows his clients need to be patient. Currently, REVS has one doctor per shift. And apart from the staffing, there's the vast space itself.
“That's all we can afford,” Ingersoll said. “So once that cage is full, we have to send the humans or animals to another location with multiple cages and larger capacity.”
There was a gap of nearly three months between the closure of the previous overnight veterinary care facility in Brighton and the opening of REVS to provide care to animals in dire straits. Ingersoll, who added the community, is grateful to have these services back in Rochester.
“With the stagnation and lack of night care, I think the community is feeling that and appreciating what a blessing it is to have a facility like this,” Ingersoll said.
As traffic has stabilized, the search for expansion space with greater capacity has already begun while adding more equipment.
“We knew we were going to outgrow this space, which means we'd basically be at capacity in the first week here,” Ingersoll said.
But it comes with a hefty price tag.
“This is what we're doing,” Ingersoll said. “There is no corporate support for this, so we are doing this entirely based on community support.”
Click here to learn more about Rochester Emergency Veterinary Services.
