Charities of Convenience

9.55 pm, Mumbai. The July downpour was making it difficult for me to hear across the reception table. "Would that be Rs.300 (little less than 5$)  including the autorickshaw money", said a lady across my reception table. The question surprised me and I thought for a while that I heard the lady wrong. After gathering my calm I kindly said "No, I paid for your autorickshaw from my own pocket as you did not have the change. The Rs. 300 are the clinic consult charges. The receipt of the same will be emailed to you.” I tried to stay as composed as I could. "This is all a money making business,” she said “You do all of this just for the money!  You don't love animals."This statement was more than enough to numb me and my wife/colleague.

 Our practice shuts at 8pm everyday. Moments before we were about to step out, we received a call at about 8.20pm from a lady requesting us to see a dog. We said we are closed for the day and asked if we could schedule an appointment for the next day. She pleaded us to attend her dog as she had rescued it. She promised she would be there in 10 minutes. 

As luck would have it a  7 year old labrador walks in with a complaint of "not eating anything for the last 3 days". We were not surprised to see that she had a temperature of 106 F and all of us began stabilizing the 7 year old.
Ok... Getting back to the story...

"10 minutes later at 8.50pm" a lady walks in with a spitz who has a pink ribbon tied around his belly. She asked me, if I had a 100 Rs change for the autorickshaw. I took her in the reception and paid off the impatient rickshaw guy from my pocket as I did not have change of Rs.100 which the lady asked me for. We asked her to wait for a few minutes before we took her in.

The spitz was found abandoned at a railway station by the lady.  She called him Jimmy. I took a bowl filled it with food and offered it to Jimmy. He finished it up within no time. I gave him water to drink and he gulped it down like there was no tomorrow. The lady then said he has a wound on the left front leg (suspected dog-bite) and would like us to have a look. Jimmy once again looked at the food bowl with an expectant expression on his face. I knew that expression and offered him some more food. He thanked me with a happy wagging tail and lunged his way into the food bowl. While he was eating, the lady told me that she had called up a rescue organization which she frequents but unfortunately they had not attended her calls. As it was very late she said she could not travel to the shelter to board him but neither could she take him home. I passed on contacts of some rescuers/foster places I knew and asked her to see if they could help Jimmy.

Jimmy had finished his food and looked up with content. I requested her to pick him up and put Jimmy on the table for me to examine. She tried but I guess he was anxious and would try to snap whenever she tried to lift him. I tried to pick him up but with the same result. I told her not to do it anymore for her own safety, as we did not know his vaccination status against rabies (Rabies is a very endemic in Mumbai) . We skipped that idea and examined the wound hands-off. The wound was healing very well with a granulation tissue. The wound was clean and needed no debridation. Being cautious we decided to clean the wound by squirting betadine repeatedly and sprayed it with a fly repellent spray to prevent maggots. We then asked her to get Jimmy vaccinated by the vets at the shelter house she frequents as it would be less expensive there.

It took about 35-45 minutes for the consult. Before making the payment she said she will leave Jimmy at our clinic and withdraw money from the ATM. We said there is no need for that she can swipe her debit/credit card at our reception, which she refused. She left him and was gone for 10 minutes to withdraw money from the ATM, we heaved a sigh of relief as she came back!

"Would that be Rs.300 ( 5$) including the autorickshaw money”, she asked.

The rest is history... 

We "tried" to make her understand that we have just charged minimum clinic charges for giving her our time, waiting till 10pm despite our regular clinic time of 8.00pm. Neither have we levied any after-hour/emergency consult charges, nor have we charged her for the little betadine we squirted or the food we offered. It was a little gesture we did from our side for the furry soul.

In spite of those harsh "money making business" charges alleged on us, we did not ask the lady to step out of our premises. People forget veterinarians have emotions and expect us to have resilience even against abuses. Despite the lady's rudeness we allowed her to wait in the reception as it was pouring outside. The lady continued to wait for 10 more minutes till she found a response from one of the rescuers who could keep Jimmy overnight. The only consolation out of this fiasco was to hear that Jimmy found a roof over his head for the night...

We try to help as many dogs and cats that walk in to our clinic, but such words do set us back emotionally. Charity from our side means not levying an after-hour consult charge or any emergency charges and helping them in whatever way we can.
 We work out of love for animals but we are often emotionally blackmailed to get things done as per people’s wishes. Our estimate of charges is displayed at the waiting area which mentions the minimum clinic charges for any services. We also pay our staff overtime in cases of extended hours of work. We have to pay rents, loans, salaries, distributors for our clinic supplies, electricity and we also have families. We are humans and also feel hungry and thirsty! We forget all our human needs when we work and try to do our best in every way we can…

"Charity" means the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing.

But these days the word "Charity" has been reduced to "Expecting the opposite person to do all the things for you and that too for free". If you don't get what you wish, curse the opposite person and drive them into a guilt trip. Our love and compassion for animals is not only the Armour but also the Heel of Achilles.
Thats the thing that keep us going all along and the thing that can hurt us the most... 

Just a humble request to all the so called "Charity" and Animal Welfare people, if you think charity means tying a nylon ribbon around the waist of a dog and bringing him over to a clinic and expecting things for "Free" … It is not! Charity means owning up to a responsibility and doing whatever it takes for its cause....