Cost of living pressures are biting into preventative and emergency pet care with Melbourne’s iconic not-for-profit animal hospital revealing it is struggling to cope with demand for its low-cost vet services.

Across Victoria, families are skipping vet visits, missing out on preventative care and, increasingly, facing the difficult decision of either incurring debt or euthanising their pet.

‘’Last year, 54 per cent of all people who visited pet hospital Lort Smith were struggling financially and received discounted care,’’ says Lort Smith CEO Frances Mirabelli.

‘’It has now come to the point where we are having to eat into cash reserves
to keep pace with rising costs and surging demand for the critical care we provide.

The Lort Smith model relies heavily on full-paying clients to subsidise care for those who cannot afford it and the generosity of the pet-loving community, making donations – a balance that is becoming harder to maintain as household budgets tighten across the state.’’

Lort Smith Animal Hospital is urgently calling on both the government and the
opposition to commit approximately $1 million in targeted funding.

“It’s the emergencies that are the main problem,” Ms Mirabelli says, “that’s when it starts to get really expensive, regardless of the emergency relief we provide.’’

Lort Smith is also seeking an additional $4 million commitment to expand its crisis relief animal boarding program for the pets of people experiencing family violence.

The money would go towards a purpose-built boarding facility, which would then be open to those fleeing domestic violence, housing instability, and illness.