Veterinarians Adapt to Elective Surgery Ban

Last week Governor Pete Ricketts banned all elective surgeries to help preserve gloves and masks for the fight against COVID-19. That ban includes surgeries by dentists and veterinarians.

Ryan Koch is a veterinarian in York, Nebraska. He works with both pets and livestock. The practice where he works moved to curbside drop-off of animals early in the pandemic and started taking payments over the phone.

Now that elective surgeries are banned, the office is not doing spay and neuter procedures. They are still performing surgeries for emergency or trauma situations for animals.

The practice is still seeing a busy season for livestock this spring, but they have seen a drop-off in class for small animals and pets.

Koch said when more cases come to York, the drop-off may become starker.

“Once that happens, we’ll really be restricting and doing as little as possible,” Koch said. “And then aside from that, with people losing jobs and having less income, they just won’t have the money to spend on more the elective, and even some of the essential things that pets need, they just won’t be able to afford them. So I know that’s going to affect us in a big way.”

Koch is worried specifically about people not vaccinating young animals, which can be at risk.