Riverland Veterinary Practice

24/06/2024

Free training sessions for our older canine companions! Please check it out and see if you can benefit.

11/06/2024

Wow, what a trip!

Dr Hammond, Dr Shamilka, Amie, Charlotte and Sue travelled where no Vets have travelled for 7 years…

After being inundated with requests of Veterinary services, a team of Riverland Veterinary Practice staff made the trek to Coober Pedy and Oodnadatta to perform an array of services.

The team performed surgeries, desexings, floating horse’s teeth, vaccinations, consultations, even fixing wildlife!

This trip would not have been possible without the help of our supplier representatives (Lyppards, Virbac, MSD/Bravecto, Elanco & Mars Pet Nutrition) helping to provide preventative healthcare products. We also owe our thanks to the community of Coober Pedy and Oodnadatta, for embracing and accommodating our trip. Finally, our last thanks extend to the RVP staff members who made this trip possible; the roster reconfigurations, the product and equipment organisations and ordering, and for the remaining staff who held the fort down.

Something tells us that it won’t be our last outback trip!

10/05/2024

Appreciation post!

Safe Pets Safe Families - Paws & Pals Pop-up Clinic held Sunday 28 April 2024.

The event was hosted by AC Care and as always supported and attended by River Dogs Mobile Dog Wash. Volunteer staff from RVP include Sue, Kady, Dr Nicole, Dr Simone, Kim and Dr Shamilka (not pictured).

Thank you to everyone involved in helping the Riverland community 🐾

09/05/2024

Look who's hopped in for a mani/pedi... Can you guess their favourite music genre?

02/05/2024

Join me on ABC Riverland Radio tomorrow morning at 9.20am (Friday) to talk about what to do if you find a lump on your pet.

26/04/2024

This week, we celebrate two very special days within the Veterinary Industry.

On Monday, we celebrated World Veterinary Reception Day and tomorrow, we celebrate World Veterinarian Appreciation Day.

Please join us in thanking the wonderful staff not only at our practice, but Veterinary clinics worldwide. The effort they put in each and every day and the dedication they show towards looking after pets (and their owners) of the Riverland is truly admirable, commendable and does not go unnoticed.

24/04/2024

-ANZAC DAY CLINIC CLOSURES -

Please note that our Berri, Renmark, Waikerie and Loxton Clinic's will be closed for standard services on Thursday 25th April as we pay our respects to the ANZAC day public holiday.
Emergency services will still be available at our Berri clinic over this time period.

Our clinics will re-open on
Berri - Friday 26th April
Renmark - Monday 29th April
Waikerie - Monday 29th April
Loxton - Monday 29th April

Lest We Forget

23/04/2024

Please like and share so that we can continue to service these remote areas. Nothing is too big or small on these trips 🐴🐕🐱🐮

02/04/2024

Found in Berri. No microchip. Currently having cuddles with our staff. Please phone if you know who this sweet girl belongs to.

04/02/2024

Tune into the ABC radio tomorrow morning from 8.50am to hear about our locum vets, and how they will be helping out current demand for staff

31/01/2024

Even though we have been a bit quiet on here recently, our team have been busy working behind the scenes in working through ways to staff our branch clinics.

We are so happy to announce that we have obtained multiple locum Vets to assist our team, starting from the end of February until the beginning of April.

Please find our revised open/closed dates for our branch clinics during the month of February:

Loxton-
Closed 19th Feb.
All other regular dates will be open!

Pinnaroo- Open 19th Feb

Renmark-
Thursday 8th – Closed
Friday 9th- Closed
Monday 12th- Open with no Vet
Thursday 15th- Closed
Friday 16th- Closed
Thursday 22nd- Closed
All other regular dates will be open!

Waikerie:
All regular dates will be open!

Whilst we cannot staff all clinics for every regular date in February, we are super excited to announce that EVERY regular date in EVERY branch clinic will be open for the month of March! (Pinnaroo will be open on the 19th March).

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your patience, your understanding and your kindness towards the difficult situation we are facing. We are continuing to work hard to provide services for all clients and their patients of the Riverland and surrounding communities.

Stay tuned for a brief announcement on who will be helping us look after your beloved pets 🐾

04/01/2024

Please find our revised open/closed dates for our branch clinics during the month of January:

Loxton:
Monday 8th- Open
Thursday 18th Jan- Open
All other regular dates will be closed.

Renmark:
Every Tuesday- Open
Every Monday, Thursday, Friday- Closed

Waikerie
Monday 8th - Closed
Friday 12th - Closed
Monday 15th - Closed
All other regular dates remain open.

We will aim to keep you informed as we move forward during this difficult time and would like to thank you all for your understanding.

18/12/2023

To our valued clients and patients,
As many of you know, the veterinary industry is facing multiple challenges which has led to a significant worldwide Veterinarian shortage and inability to fill positions and staff clinics.
Due to ever increasing pressures from this shortage, we have made the tough decision to temporarily close some of our branch clinics (Renmark, Loxton & Pinnaroo) when there is no Veterinarian available to provide services.

This is not a decision that has been made lightly and we understand this will disappoint many of you, however our aim is to simply make this as temporary as possible until we can find more Veterinarians.

Our afterhours service remains in place for emergencies from our Berri premises. Please note that our staff are working vigorously around the clock, and kindly request that afterhours assistance is reserved for pets with life threatening, serious conditions or end of life appointments.

We are continuing to utilize an external service, MedeChat, for afterhours phone calls when our nurses need to rest or are assisting the vet. As this company is designed for determining if a patient requires Veterinary assistance afterhours, we ask that non-urgent phone calls and general enquiries be made during business hours when our dedicated reception team are available.

Being the only 'bricks and mortar' Veterinary Clinic in the Riverland and surrounding areas, we feel a tremendous responsibility to provide such an array of services, which is why we have implemented these measures to care for our staff so they can continue to care for your pets.

We respectfully ask for your understanding in these matters whilst we continue our search for more vets. Please look out for our temporary branch clinic closure dates, or alternatively phone the Berri clinic on 8582 1222.

Riverland Veterinary Practice

11/12/2023

30/11/2023

Tune in to 5RM tomorrow at 9.35am to listen to our nurse Gill speaking about diabetes in pets!

24/11/2023

Waikerie grooming day! ✂

Our talented groomer, Emily, will be travelling to our Waikerie clinic on the 8th of December. We have 3 spots left for either small to medium dogs, or cats.
Please remember all our furry friends must be up to date with their vaccinations 💉 prior to be groomed.
If you would like your furry family member to look their best on Christmas, give our Waikerie clinic a call on 8541 3485.

23/11/2023

Look who’s back!

We are super excited on the return of Dr Georgie to our Waikerie clinic. Dr Georgie has been travelling back and forth to the Southeast, practicing her long-distance driving as well as more of her large animal skills.

Since becoming married, she thought it was a good idea to start spending some more time with her husband, Henry, and has come back to join the RVP team.

We are so happy to have her back. You will find Dr Georgie working mainly from our Waikerie clinic, with occasional visits to our other clinics.

14/11/2023

This week Nurse Gill will be talking on ABC Radio about how to raise orphaned kittens, the challenges and rewards these little bundles of fluff can bring. The purrrfect time to tune in 9:35am this Friday 17th.

02/11/2023

Do you have an nervous Nellie a fearful Fido?

Listen in tomorrow (Friday) at 9.35am as Gill, our longest serving Staff member will be talking on ABC Radio about Anxiety in Dogs.

27/10/2023

Saturday Consulting

It is saddening to hear once again of the declining numbers of veterinary staff, unfortunately we have not been immune to this trend.

As of today, the difficult decision was made to cease our Saturday morning ‘on the day’ consults at the Berri Clinic. The doors will still be open for over-the-counter sales, medication collection and food purchases but no veterinarian will be available. This is being done to enable afterhours emergency care to continue 24/7 unaffected.

If you have a critical emergency, please call the Clinic 8582 1222, where you will be triaged by a Veterinary Nurse and a Vet can be called in if urgent lifesaving treatment is required, out of hours fees will apply to these visits.

We appreciate your understanding while we continue trying to recruit more staff to service the Riverland community.

27/10/2023

Feline Vaccine Shortages

Australia is currently experiencing a nationwide shortage of feline vaccinations, with products on back order this has affected our ability to provide our usual vaccination services for cats.

The Sydney University Centre for Veterinary Education and Australian Veterinary Association have released guidelines postponing the vaccination of older cats and doing 2 vaccinations in kittens at 12-14 weeks and 16-18 weeks.

As we are running lower on vaccines, we will be following these guidelines until more can be sourced.
The suggested timeframe from manufacturing companies is potentially February 2024. We will be checking in regularly with them and will contact clients with overdue cats as soon as we can procure more stock.

We strongly recommend our senior patients still come in for their annual health check to ensure no changes have crept in over the preceding 12 months. Older cats will have a period of >12 months immunity so a temporary delay in vaccination will not increase risk of infection but a delay in exam could miss a potential change in health.

Thankyou for your understanding during these trying times.

Picture of one of todays very well behaved patients Frankie.

20/10/2023

Below is some information about pet food bank and volunteer space open day this Saturday if anyone is interested to pop in.

BAMERA SPSF PET FOOD BANK - GRAND OPENING 21st OCTOBER📣

It’s been a busy year for the small group of volunteers from Safe Pets Safe Families (SPSF) Riverland branch, who've provided over 2,000 meals to companion pets in the region in 2023 so far.

With their volunteer space and PET FOOD BANK now fully operational, the not-for-profit organisation is asking for help.

The ribbon on the doors of the Bice Street, Barmera location will officially be cut at 10am, on Saturday the 21st of October, and while usually reserved for volunteers, the shop doors will stay open until 1:30pm for the community to visit and find out more about what SPSF does.

“We’re a group who are passionate about companion pets 🐕🐈 staying with their family during times of crisis, such as homelessness and domestic violence. Surrendering or leaving a pet behind, without knowing what will happen to them is heartbreaking, and adds more stress to an already traumatic time,” says regional coordinator Mandy Page.

The community is invited to enjoy a cuppa & cake over an informal chat about volunteering opportunities such as foster caring for pets, packing and delivering pet food, or helping at pop-up vet clinics.

“Dry pet food donations are much needed, so we’ll gladly receive these on the day as well,” adds Ms Page.

SPSF CEO Jennifer Howard will also be available to discuss corporate opportunities, plus testimonials from clients to emphasize the important work that is being done in the community.

The community open day features giveaways for kids and pets, a face painter, and a raffle with fabulous prizes for pets.

13/10/2023

Day 5- Wow.
What a week it’s been. It’s been a long one, so it only seems fair that this post will be the same.
The past 2.5 days we have
desexed 20 dogs, 40 cats,
emergency fracture repair,
cruciate repair, dental procedure,
copious vaccinations and consults, not to mention being available afterhours for consultations and emergencies.

Hearing the need for so many pets needing to be desexed, prompted what seemed like a tremendous amount of planning and preparing to create two desexing days on top of our normal schedule.

Some of you may remember past Vets; Dr Lara and Dr Caitlin. They had generously taken time from their busy workplaces of GreenCross and SASH, to come and help clients of the Riverland have their pets desexed.

None of this would have been possible without the hardworking and dedication of our staff, no matter their ‘title’.

We truly hope that this weeks worth of posts has brought to light the worth of all our staff. They are not ‘just nurses’ and we appreciate absolutely everything that they do for clients and pets of the Riverland.

Lastly, we would like to thank our beautiful clients for all their likes, comments, support and not to mention the cards and gifts we have received.

Happy vet nurse/tech appreciation week! May the positivity continue and appreciation grow.

12/10/2023

Day 4- our carers!
Here in the Riverland, we have lot of wildlife that are either injured or in need of care. From kangaroos and birds, to kittens and wombats, we foster and care for as many animals that we can.

Our staff don’t just give their all whilst working on the clock, but are more than willing to volunteer their own time when they’re off the clock.

We appreciate not just the nursing support staff for the care and rehabilitation of wildlife, but to our amazing and dedicated wildlife carers of the Riverland 🦘 🦅 🐈‍⬛ 🦎

11/10/2023

You may have noticed this mumma to be ‘waddling’ around our clinic the past 9 months… The time has finally come for Dr Nicole and her beloved husband Seamus to have some much needed time off before their bundle of joy arrives.

Who are we kidding… Instead of Dr Nicole banking up her sleep before bub arrives, she has been working right up until her due date of tomorrow!! looking after our staff along with still seeing clients and their pets.

We know that this week is to recognise and appreciate nurses, however, day 3 of appreciation goes to Dr Nicole. For putting the needs of her colleagues and pets of the Riverland before her own.

Good luck Dr Nicole and Seamus, we can’t wait for some cuddles of the human species 💕

10/10/2023

Day 2 of our nurse appreciation week.

There have been numerous times in which patients have required blood transfusions for life saving treatment. Many of these times we call upon staff pets to donate blood (sometimes this can be during the middle of the night, or on weekends) in order to save a life.

We appreciate all of our staff animals for being life savers!

Below are two of our recent donors, Rocky and Koda. Rocky has recently performed his last donation, where his status will now change to ‘retired hero’

If you are interested in registering your pet to be a blood donor hero, head over to our website or give us a call. 🩸

09/10/2023

Day 1 of nurse appreciation week. They say it takes a village to raise a family… we think this saying applies to looking after pets of the Riverland 🐾

08/10/2023

This week is going to be a big one! In preparation for Vet Nurse Day, we would like to take this opportunity to thank not just our nurses, but our Vet Technicians, our Customer Care team, our Animal assistants, and our support staff.
The Riverland Veterinary Practice would not be where it is today without the dedication and passion that our amazing staff demonstrate when taking care of your pets.
Let's all show our appreciation for the amazing work they do, not just this week, but always 💖

28/09/2023

Tune in to the ABC radio tomorrow, from 7.20am to one of our nurses, Gill, who will be discussing how to keep dogs safe from snakes!

21/09/2023

Just look at what a beautiful job our groomer, Emily has done with Miss Nellie today 😍
Is your pet in need of a springtime spruce up? Give us a call to book your pet in for a pampering session.