Emergencies and Referrals

Emergency Care

Emergencies within clinic hours

Our emergency service is headed by Dr Kristen Hennessy, who as a result of spending 13 years working in a high volume emergency and referral centre in the United States, brings with her a wealth of knowledge in emergency and critical care. Dr Hennessy is continually sharing her knowledge with the staff and working to continue to develop our emergency procedures.

Emergencies outside clinic hours

The Latrobe Veterinary Group and Greencross Morwell shared the provision of after-hours emergency services to clients of both clinics from early 2008 until late April 2019, when it became impossible for Greencross to continue this arrangement. Our veterinarians were not able to support this service on their own, as this is a huge drain on their mental & physical health. We don’t want to lose them! After extensive analysis of the requirements for this type of care, and discussions with neighbouring practices, Latrobe Veterinary Group decided to cease offering this service – instead extending our opening hours. Very few emergencies actually occur overnight, the vast majority of urgent problems occur during the day or in the early evening.

For the rare emergencies which occur outside our open hours, we recommend contacting one of the following dedicated veterinary emergency centres:

Casey Pet Emergency – 03 8790 1625 – 4/471 Princes Hwy Narre Warren

Animal Emergency Centre Dandenong – 1300 385 874 – 36 Lonsdale St Dandenong

Some other Gippsland practices maintain a 24 hour emergency availability – Maffra Vet Centre and Trafalgar Vet Centre have indicated they are able to see emergency cases in many situations. Always ring first.

Referral Services

Although we can handle the vast majority of conditions within our clinics, some cases such as eye surgery, spinal surgery and other complex cases are best dealt with by registered Veterinary Specialists in these fields. We willingly offer and organise referrals to specialists for complicated, unresponsive or difficult cases. We may also recommend referral of emergency and intensive cases to a 24 hour clinic if intensive monitoring is going to be required overnight.

Dr Kate Haines often receives referrals from other veterinarians for veterinary biomechanical care.

Large Animal Property Calls

The Latrobe Veterinary Group ceased providing routine and emergency property calls for large animals in February 2007, to focus on our core area of quality small animal practice.