Pender Veterinary Center Reviews

Again, the “cons” started once NVA took over. The main con was the management team. After the C.O.O (Kyle) was fired, a new NVA hospital manager was hired, Jessica Rodriguez. I literally worked with her for well over a year and never had an actual conversation with her. I honestly don’t even know what exactly her job entailed. This was so different from the COO Kyle, who was very involved and handled all sorts of things, from client concerns/complaints, day to day hospital operations, and all the nitty gritty that comes with being a manager of a huge hospital. Jessica rarely if ever left her office on the top floor. When we received calls about things that Kyle would handle, it was soon realized that Jessica was not Kyle. She avoided these communications at all costs (that were once routine to Kyle) and the receptionists were left to “figure it out”. Quite frequently, we’d receive calls from people who were extremely upset; they had sent Jessica several emails, left her voicemails and they still hadn’t heard back, and they took out their frustration on the overworked, underpaid receptionists (probably not realizing that we were just as annoyed as they were). It made us look like fools. She was completely oblivious that the “day to day” was starting to crash and burn, and that good, hardworking, long time Pender employees were feeling under appreciated, over worked, burnt out, and the job that they once loved, was becoming something that they dreaded. We lost SO many amazing employees in just about every department: long time doctors, shift leads, managers on duty, vet techs, vet assistants, client service reps…you name it, the best of the best employees were leaving for other vet hospitals that would treat them with the respect they deserved and pay them fairly for all the amazing work they do. Once NVA took over, employee reviews and raises were a thing of the past. Even if you were “promoted” from a CSR to a shift lead (which requires more work, more responsibility, more stress), the pay raise that once accompanied the promotion no longer applied. Granted, toward the middle of 2020 raises sort of started again, but not like it was under Drs. Johnson & Powell. Once COVID started to become serious, that’s when stuff really hit the fan. Since clients couldn’t come in the building, the phones were ALWAYS ringing, with a phone que of anywhere between 5 and 20 people who were put on hold in the order they called. Phone wait times became long, clients who were used to scheduling an appt for the same day or at least the same week now had to wait 3-4 weeks for a regular appointment, rx refills were taking longer due to an increase in rx requests, emergency visit wait times became longer, and even when a client would wait the few weeks for their appt, the appt would take longer; which is only natural: the staff worked insanely hard running outside to the client car, getting pt hx, bringing patient back inside, assisting Dr w/ appt, Dr then calling the client to discuss the visit, filling any meds, having a CSR to call for payment-often times every CSR was already on the phone (like I said they NEVER stopped ringing), and once $ was collected, the tech/asst would then go outside to bring the pet back to owner, then having to rush back inside to move on to the next appt, however they were often stopped by an annoyed client outside of their car who was “tired of being on hold” or had some other issue that for some reason made them more important than the 10+ clients ahead of them. My god, each day was hell. Also, management didn’t start ACTUALLY enforcing the mask mandate until maybe July? And there’s no such thing as “socially distancing” when working in vet med. Also, it’s not like each worker had their own work station; clients had a hard time hearing us on the phone with our masks on, so we often had to lower the masks to talk on the phone…the phones that were shared with all the other workers. Their Covid policy was terrible. For instance: a woman’s daughter who lives with her tested Covid positive, the women told management, and was told she could either self quarantine WITHOUT pay, or continue coming to work as long as “she felt fine”. So it’s no wonder Covid started spreading rampant among workers. The worst part about it, when an employee tested positive and informed management, the staff would receive a message letting us know that someone tested positive (not naming the person bc of HIPAA) but wouldn’t even let us know what floor they worked on, if they worked AM or PM, or even what department they worked in. It was impossible to know if we had any likelihood of exposure without that information, and once again, we could voluntarily quarantine WITHOUT PAY, or work. Even if somehow we found out that yes indeed we were exposed but perhaps hadn’t tested positive yet, most people simply cannot afford 2 weeks without pay. It’s simply not an option. Essential workers that made the hospital function were quitting, and meanwhile instead of working hard to hire a surplus of support staff, management hired more and more managers??? More managers to sit upstairs in their offices while the remaining workers were drowning. We were losing clients left & right simply because we didn’t have enough staff to handle the influx of clients, which resulted in longer wait times, more mistakes/things forgotten, our quality of patient care was declining, and we simply no longer had the time to provide quality, individualized, above&beyond care to clients. I once genuinely loved my job, but toward the end I was burning out and had a mental breakdown. I realized my hard work ethic would be valued somewhere else, I’d still have my sanity, and I could actually enjoy working again…just not at an NVA owned hospital. Do your research. I guarantee you can find another vet hospital that will pay you fairly and treat you with respect. Don’t let the “new” Pender turn you off from vet med.