The ball is a two-and-a-half-year-old silver-grained pet cat that began to experience frequent coughing last week. After 90, the owner, seo ken, began to care, but the cat coughed more than a week later, and the frequency was even higher. This makes seo ken nervous because it “suppresses like what he says online”. So he took the ball to a pet hospital in beijing's chaoyang district and, at the advice of the pet doctor and nurse, xu jian decided to examine the ball, including cat respiratory virus pcr tests, blood routine tests, cardiac colours and two x-rays。
One check down and seo-jaon spends more than 3,000. According to the doctor, “there is no problem at present, and asthma is more likely; if it continues to deteriorate, hormonal intervention is required for life at a cost of tens of thousands”
“when colleagues knew, they said i was crazy. Because i've never spent so much money on me." he said that the price, though painful, was “but i paid for my teeth to keep the ball from getting sick”。
High examination and treatment costs often overburden the pet owner
The growing market for pet health care has been accompanied from time to time by poor practices such as over-screening and the management of small diseases。
Zhou lai, a designer, took his cat to the hospital to catch a cold, but didn't expect to open nearly $1,000. “i was worried about the cat, and the doctor asked me to pay, and i came back to the list, 150 dollars for cold medicine, 100 dollars for anti-inflammatory medicine, 200 dollars for ear anti-inflammation medicine, 150 dollars for blood tests, and a box of 300 different nutritional supplements.”
Liu yu, who is in the pet hospital with a pet, also told reporters that he had spent 10,000 days to treat his own kittens for diarrhea。
Patients are expensive, which has also led to the abandonment of pets by their owners who have recently worked or are still studying. "i saved money for a cat when i graduated, and i didn't think i'd get a cat plague, and the doctor said it would cost at least a thousand dollars, and my family didn't think it was worth a cat and forced me to send it away." wu kai stated that he was unable to pay for the diagnosis alone and that he felt bad and guilty about sending cats。
In china's 2022 white paper on the patients health industry, it was mentioned that the fastest growth in the pet industry was in medical consumption, which was 10. 7 per cent higher than in the same period in 2021, and currently ranks second only to food。
There is an information asymmetry between patients and patients in the pet medicine industry. Because animals are not able to speak, they are often subject to exclusionary methods, i. E. The use of laboratory tests for individual screening, and the high cost of examinations and treatment often overburdens the pet owner。
Liu said that when he took his pets to the hospital, the doctor asked him to do whatever he had to do, and he kept paying, “i didn't think i'd spend so much money before, i thought thousands of dollars would cure it, and i didn't think it would cost more than 10,000. I don't know exactly where the money is spent.”。
In some cases, it is common to perform additional medical examinations and to buy more food or supplies during the course of medical treatment. Data from the 2022 white paper on the chinese patients health industry show that of the products consumed in pet hospitals, the largest category is “pets for patients”, “buy patients for patients” and “fairwashing”. Patient care and medical care are the main items in the consumption of pet hospitals。
Journalists found on social platforms such as little red books that the majority of people who were troubled by pets were “honorless”. A lot of internet users are out of the pet hospital bill, "doggy's done the surgery, the hospital bill feels two meters long," "it's $35 for one imported anti-inflammation pill."
Patients are expensive because, in the view of some consumers, some of the pet hospitals are overpaid and overmedical. However, the 2022 white paper on the chinese petty health industry showed that nearly 45 per cent of pet hospitals had a profit margin of over 10 per cent in 2022; at the same time, one fifth of pet hospitals were in deficit. A large proportion of the profits of pet hospitals are not as high as they would have been, and even a lot of them are living in a situation of insufficiency。
Professionals: the profits of pet hospitals are not as high as they thought
The “stackers” shouted for high fees and the pet hospital called low profits. Wang wenley, a professional pet teacher at the beijing institute of agricultural profession, told zhongqing zhongqing, a journalist, that it was an indisputable fact to give care to pets, but that the profit of the current pet hospital was “not as high as expected” because of the high rent, equipment, prices and cost of medicines at the pet hospital。
According to wang wenley, the cost of a pet medical institution is mainly due to three factors: first, the cost of being a qualified veterinarian in our country, with at least five years of practical experience, with continuous participation in various training courses at home and abroad, with a doctor spending between $20,000 and $50,000 a year on training; second, the cost of medicines, such as the same antibiotics, a few bottles of medicines for humans, but several dollars for pets, because of the lower production of pet drugs and the higher unit cost; and third, the cost of equipment, the fact that animals are not able to speak, and that precision equipment can help doctors to find the cause of the disease and reduce the pain of the pets。
However, it is unlikely that the investment will return to high income. The nuclear magnets and cts for pet inspections cost $3 million for one device, approximately $300,000 per year for maintenance, and three staff members are required to work together. According to wang wenley, “in the case of 30 per cent pure, six to eight years will be required, whereas in fact five to 10 years will be depreciated and the cost of introducing a nuclear magnetic device will be equal to income, which is already the ideal situation”
In general hospitals, a machine can visit about 100 people a day, but in animal hospitals, only 3-5 cases of ct pets are generally required. In addition, “the threshold of access to veterinary medicines is no lower than that for humans, and new medicines require many links from research and development, testing to entry through approval”. Wang wenley explained that “the sharing of costs such as the price of medicines, equipment losses and human costs has led to higher unit prices for medicines and inspections”
U sai, who runs a pet hospital in beijing, invested $3. 4 million in equipment alone. He believes that good equipment is necessary to help doctors to understand the situation more precisely。
In addition, domestic pet medical clinical drugs are still heavily dependent on imports at high prices. According to cicad data, 70 per cent of domestic pet drugs come from abroad; the foreign brand market for pet vaccines is up to 90 per cent。
“it is always believed that the pet hospital earns a lot of money, and that the profit of a pet hospital is only 5 to 8 per cent, which is in good hands.” wu sai and his colleagues were trained a few days ago to learn that “in the beijing market, 50 and 60 pet hospitals have been shut down last year”。
"the people i've come into contact with are usually pet clinics or hospitals, most of which are hard to sustain." wu sai said。
The white paper on the chinese petty care industry 2022 also shows that, as of october 2022, the number of national pet clinics stood at 19930, with nearly 40 per cent of hospitals showing annual turnover increases over the same period, mainly within 10 per cent, and 28. 1 per cent showing negative annual turnover growth。
How can a pet crack a disease
The high cost of medicines and examinations, the institution of private investment in hospitals, the shortage of pet doctors, and the psychological acceptance of the cost of animal health care make it inevitable that pets are expensive。
On the one hand is demand and on the other is despair. To promote the solution of the problem of the value of pets, several practitioners believe that mutual supervision and regulation within the industry can be achieved through the establishment of pet medical associations to create a good industry climate and promote their healthy development。
In recent years, with successive national policies on the health care of pets, market regulations and legal systems specific to the pet economy have continued to be improved, allowing for sound and secure regulatory development of the pet consumer market。
In august 2022, the ministry of agriculture and rural development issued the approach to the management of animal clinics, which further strengthens the management of animal clinics and regulates their behaviour. Since october 2022, the ministry of agriculture and rural affairs and the general directorate of market supervision have jointly issued a circular on special management actions to regulate the care of pets in selected cities. This has led to the establishment of a cooperative mechanism for the regulation of the care of pets in rural farming and market-based regulatory departments, the promotion of quality development in the sector, the establishment of a dynamic regulatory model for effective risk prevention and strong market order management, and the improvement of the price management system for scientific pricing, fair prices and clearly coded prices。
Wang wenley stated that there was a strong trend towards greater regulation of the pet medical market in the face of frequent consumer challenges. On the one hand, it is necessary to comply strictly with the provisions of the act on the structure of animal health care, etc., and on the other hand, administrative supervision and industry self-regulation are required to keep pace with the law in order to increase transparency and openness in the treatment of pets and to allow doctors to return to their care during surgery, examination and use of medicines。
Today, matching pet health insurance is also available on the market, and pets are reimbursed; some of the pet hospitals are also expanding the “internet+peter medical” online consultation. As the industry progresses towards standardization, the problem of expensive care for pets will improve. (journalist, profiter, intern, korean arts)
