New emergency veterinary practice opens its doors tonight

A new 24-hour emergency veterinary clinic will open its doors at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 1, at 1150 University Ave.

Rochester Emergency Veterinary Services will receive emergency patients from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Monday through Thursday and from 7 p.m. Friday until 7 a.m. Monday, Dr. Bruce Ingersoll, one of the founders, said at a press conference last December.

The practice won’t receive pets from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays “since that’s the time when your day practitioners will be open and the urgent cares who have sort of tried to fill the gap as well will be open to take those,” he said. “We just don’t have the staff and will not have the staff by Feb. 1.”

Pets that are admitted won’t have to leave the hospital from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays, he explained, because Ingersoll and other veterinarians, including Dr. Brenda Buck, will be there to monitor them.

The clinic’s opening follows the November 2023 closing of Veterinary Specialists & Emergency Services (VSES) in Brighton. For more than two decades, it was the area’s only 24/7 animal hospital. In May 2021, the practice was sold to Texas-based Thrive Pet Healthcare. In August 2023, after twice reducing hours, Thrive announced the practice would close, citing a shortage of veterinarians — and forcing people with pets in crisis to drive to 24-hour emergency practices in Buffalo, Syracuse and Ithaca.

At this point, in terms of staff, Rochester Emergency Veterinary Services is a smaller-scale operation than VSES, and at the December press conference, Ingersoll said: “The community is still going to have to exercise a lot of patience with us. We are going to be taking the most critical, the most in-need patients. Some patients we may be turning away and saying, ‘You have to go to an urgent care tomorrow,’ or ‘You’re going to have to go to one of the other facilities still.’”

In an interview with WXXI, Ingersoll said that even though Rochester Emergency Veterinary Services will operate as a nonprofit, it will charge market rates for care.

The practice is accepting donations at rocemergencyvet.com.

Reporter Marcia Greenwood covers general assignments. Send story tips to mgreenwo@rocheste.gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @MarciaGreenwood.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Rochester Emergency Veterinary Services opens on University Ave.