AVC Veterinary Teaching Hospital
550 University Avenue C1A4P3 Charlottetown, PE, Canada

One of our own, Dr. Cate Creighton, and some exciting research!

There are so many questions circling around us these days. Here are some good, practical answers from the PEI Veterinary Medical Association on how we can take care of our pets, ourselves and each other! https://www.theguardian.pe.ca//include-pets-in-home-biose/

Dear clients, the Veterinary Teaching Hospital (VTH) remains open for business for urgent care and emergency services. All of our staff are being advised to ask screening questions to all of our clients. Please don’t be offended or upset if you are asked these questions multiple times by multiple people. We are just doing our best to keep our staff and the general public safe. Please call ahead before coming to the VTH so that we can screen you appropriately. This even app...lies for pet food purchases and prescription refill pick-ups. No animals will be denied emergency service, not even those from high-risk or infected households. We just need to know how to protect ourselves appropriately. Clients from off island have even more restrictions. Please call ahead so that you can understand how these restrictions will impact you in order to make decisions about whether or not it is reasonable to come. Veterinary medicine is an essential service on Prince Edward Island and we continue to serve with pride. See more

Updated Information for our Clients and their Pets ***Please note, this is a rapidly changing situation and thus information and protocols may change frequently. We will try our best to keep you up to date of all changes, and appreciate your patience in this time of uncertainty. Coming to the VTH with an animal:... If you need urgent or emergency service we are here to serve you. Veterinary Medicine is considered an essential service by the Government of PEI and we will do our best to remain open throughout this crisis. ** All clients and visitors to the VTH should call ahead so that we can ask important screening questions (even for pet food purchases or prescription refills). Our front desk number is 902-566-0950 ** When you arrive to the hospital please call and wait in your car ** We are providing drive-through service - Please wait in your car for someone to come and get your animal - If your animal is stable, you will be asked to remain in your car while we examine your pet and ask you history questions over the phone - If your animal is not stable or the appointment is for end-of-life care only ONE family member is permitted to enter hospital and attend the appointment - Our waiting room is closed at this time and we apologize for the inconvenience - Once your animal’s appointments and procedures are complete they will be returned to you in the car and discharge statements will be provided to you via email - Payment by credit card will occur over the phone - Please maintain the recommended 1-2m distance between yourself and all of our personnel ** Routine visiting hours are discontinued. For critical patients, only ONE family member is able to visit at a time and there will be no visitation within the ICU ** Purchasing pet food and obtaining prescriptions is still possible and these will occur in the same drive-through model. Please call when you arrive ** At this time, we are not accepting cash transactions. ** We continue to provide care for only urgent or emergency cases. Elective cases have been or will be cancelled. If your animal’s status changes and the situation becomes more urgent, please call us so that we can re-assess ** If you are in self-isolation, sick, or have travelled in the past 14 days we would ask you to remain home; however, if your animal is sick we are still here to help. We have veterinarians and registered veterinary technicians in the building 24-7. Rest assured that even though our contact with you as a client may be limited, your animal’s care is a top concern. These measures allow us to ensure we can remain open for the long-term to continue to serve.

Dear Clients of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, Re:COVID-19 Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, we have been carefully monitoring the progression of... the virus and closely following the advice of Canada’s public health authorities. We have followed their recommendations and have implemented numerous changes in the Veterinary Teaching Hospital to focus on our highest prioritythe health and safety of our clients, students, and staff, while still maintaining healthcare services for you and your animals. As the virus continues to spread in communities across Canada, and with Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer raising the public risk to ‘serious,’ and PEI's premier declaring a Public Health State of Emergency, we are seeing the need for increasingly bold action to reduce the transmission. As such, we wanted to send along an update with respect to how coronavirus is impacting the operations of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital at AVC. Over the weekend, the decision was made to cancel all classes at UPEI and today (03/16/2020) the decision was made to suspend clinical rotations within the Veterinary Teaching Hospital. The VTH will operate on restricted service as a result of this decision. This was an incredibly difficult decision for the hospital to make, but necessary in light of anticipated staffing shortages over the coming weeks and disruptions to critical medical supplies that are also expected. What does this mean for you as a client? Effective immediately all elective and non-urgent cases will be cancelled until May 4, 2020. Given the dynamic status of this constantly changing situation, we will be assessing this situation daily and will make decisions whether to extend or shorten this time frame, but feel it is realistic at this time given the current information that we have. We have decided to wait until later within the month of April to reschedule these appointments, as we do not want to have to book them and then cancel them again later. Each service will be reviewing their schedules and determining which appointments can be versus cannot be postponed due to medical reasons. Should your animal's status change and they need to be seen sooner, we will attempt to accommodate that. We will continue to provide care to urgent and emergency cases. Urgent cases will be continue to be scheduled by referral from your primary veterinarian with the specialty service as deemed appropriate by that service and the resources they have available to them. Our hope is to retain both emergency and urgent care services throughout this situation. Should things worsen, the hospital may be forced to see cases on an emergency only basis. In that event, this would be for the most critical cases that cannot wait without delay. What should you expect when you come here? Firstly, there will be no students involved in the cases as the in-clinic teaching process is effectively halted for the remainder of this academic year. Our interns and residents are continuing to serve during this time of need and will work with senior clinicians to deliver urgent and emergency care. While it is comforting that the World Health Organization (WHO) has established that dogs are not likely to get sick from and transmit COVID-19, due to the evolving nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, clients arriving to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital will be asked some precautionary screening questions to determine whether they pose a potential risk of COVID-19 transmission. If the screening suggests a client may have been exposed to COVID-19, rest assured we WILL provide care for your animal and we will make some changes to the flow of the appointment to ensure safety for all concerned. If you are sick with respiratory disease, have traveled internationally in the past 14 days or have had contact with a suspect or known positive case of COVID-19 we would ask that you stay home and have someone else bring in your animal. Additionally, to limit client and patient contact, instead of utilizing our waiting room, we are offering concierge service," where staff will come to the client's vehicle to get animals for appointments. This applies for large animal clients as well. Depending on your health status/risk profile, you may or may not be able to attend the appointment with your animal in-person. For those unable to attend in person, we can keep you on a speaker phone throughout the consult. Additionally, no more than one client may accompany an animal for an appointment. Lastly, once a plan is formulated for their animal, clients will be asked to leave the hospital and updates will be provided via phone. We will discourage owner visits for all stable patients. We are only able to accommodate visitation for patients who are critically ill. While in hospital, hand washing/sanitizing will be promoted. Also physical contact between clients and staff (including handshakes and hugs) will be discouraged. We also ask clients to refrain from bringing food or drink into the hospital and our coffee service for clients will be temporarily suspended. We are also increasing our cleaning protocols of high traffic and high touch areas. The goal of these measures is to limit traffic in the hospital as much as possible and to promote social distancing. We do not take the decision to implement these policies lightly and recognize our responsibility for good citizenship during these unprecedented times. We will continue to provide after-hours primary care emergency service to Island Veterinarians and their clients at this time and will monitor staffing levels to ensure we can continue to deliver this service effectively. We are committed to serving our mission to help animals in need while maintaining the safety of our clients, staff, and team members. We thank you for your understanding and cooperation. ~VTH Administration

***UPDATE at 11AM: The Veterinary Teaching Hospital will remain closed for the remainder of the day due to weather conditions. The Emergency Hospital is open if you need our help with an emergency*** The Veterinary Teaching Hospital will be delaying opening today with a further announcement at 10am. The hospital is open for emergencies only. Stay warm and safe.

The Veterinary Teaching Hospital will be delaying opening today with a further announcement at 11am. The hospital is open for emergencies only. Stay warm and safe. ***UPDATE: The Veterinary Teaching Hospital will remain closed for the remainder of the day due to weather conditions. The Emergency Hospital is open if you need our help with an emergency***

University Closure: Due to inclement weather, UPEI will close on Wednesday, January 8, 2020 at 1:30 pm. Regularly scheduled appointments for the Teaching hospital will be cancelled and rescheduled. THE VTH AND THE ISLAND EMERGENCY SERVICE ARE STILL OPEN FOR EMERGENCIES.

We are getting lots of questions about the new Emergency Service at AVC. We appreciate that this is a big change and that change is scary. We would like to provide answers to some frequently asked questions in order to provide some information. Frequently Asked Questions: 1. Costs- We recognize that some clients may be anxious about prices, however they need not be as the after-hours primary emergency care clinic offered by the AVC will provide primary emergency care servic...Continue reading

Hope you can join us for the next event in the AVC Community Workshop Series, "Dental Care for Your Pet". Everyone is welcome. Admission is free and there will be refreshments provided.

Happy RVT Month! We our amazing veterinary technicians who work tirelessly and are the heart and soul of the VTH! Thanks for all you do. Has a technician within the VTH made an impact on you or your animal? Please share your story with us here so we can let our team know how much they matter!

It’s National Dog Day today! We’d love to see a photo of your favourite pooch...

One of our amazing graduates!