Surgery

Surgery

We perform a wide range of soft tissue and orthopaedic surgical procedures at Struggletown Veterinary Hospital. For those more specialised surgeries, we are able to offer in house visiting specialist surgeons to give your furbabies premium care where needed.

Admission

We request that you bring your pet in on the day of surgery between 7:30am and 9am, but we will organise an exact drop off time between these times to avoid a delay in admitting your animal. Please take food away from 10pm the night before surgery, and take water away after 7am on the day of surgery

When you arrive, our nurses will check your details, confirm the procedure and request that you complete a surgical consent form. Please ensure that we have a contact number so that the vets can call you if necessary. 

The nurses will ask if you would like a Pre-anaesthetic Blood test. Please check description below.

If your animal is unwell then the vet will advise you of what is needed and you will not be required to make this choice yourself.

You will be provided with a cost estimate range either when you book in or on the day of surgery. When dealing with a living organism, things can change unexpectedly, or we may find other issues during your animals procedure, and the vet will call you if costs will vary from this estimate by more than 10%.

Please allow about 15 minutes to admit your animal into hospital.

Pre-anaesthetic blood screening (PAS)

Most anaesthetic drugs, and other drugs required are metabolised by the liver and excreted by the kidneys. The PAS allows us to assess these organs and may detect disease otherwise not evident on a normal clinical exam. It also gives us a baseline reading on what is normal for your animal for future reference. We recommend a PAS in all animals as it may help us to detect subclinical disease, such as congenital or inherited diseases in puppies, and gives us more of an idea regarding a patient’s suitability for anaesthesia and the likely anaesthetic risk. Ultimately, the PAS allows us to tailor anaesthetics to the individual patient and so makes the anaesthetic as safe as possible.

Pre-anaesthetic testing is recommended in all animals, and is strongly recommended in animals over 7 years old as they are more likely to suffer from underlying problems. Animals who are unwell for any reason should also have the test done.

Intravenous fluid therapy

Intravenous fluids help to provide oxygen and nutrients to the tissues whilst the animal is under anaesthetic and help to maintain blood pressure. Recovery time is generally shorter for animals having intravenous fluids. Because we consider this so important, this is included at no extra charge in all of our general anaesthetic prices.

Discharge from Hospital

We request that you call the surgery at about 3pm to check on your animal if you haven’t yet heard from us by this time. The nurse will advise you of your animal’s progress and book a time for you to collect them. This is usually after 5pm, although we are open late so it is possible to collect your animal at a time up to 9pm if required.

Most animals go home the same day of surgery. Some need to stay overnight and this can be discussed with the vet.

You will be given an appointment time to see one of the vets or a nurse and to discuss the care of any wounds, sutures or bandages, as well as when to return to have these changed or removed.

Payment must be made at the time of discharge from hospital. We accept all major credit cards, eftpos and cash.