Bemidji no longer has any veterinary practices offering night and weekend emergency services. Local practices now direct patients to Fargo or Duluth for life-threatening pet emergencies after-hours – a 2 to 2.5-hour drive.

This situation leaves a large region of northwestern Minnesota without access to emergency veterinary services during nights and weekends. The lack of access impacts families with pets and working animals (hunting dogs, service dogs, etc.). In serious emergencies, some pets will not survive the long drive to Duluth or Fargo. Further, people who are unable to drive due to lack of a vehicle, disability, or other reason, have no way to make a long trip across the state without advance notice, and thus have no way to get help for their pet or service animal. Finally, when animals near end-of-life, owners are forced to make difficult decisions about euthanizing animals early versus risking suffering over a night or weekend.  

Petition goal

The goal of this petition is to demonstrate urgent community need and strong support for after-hours emergency care in Bemidji. Please sign this petition if you desire after-hours emergency veterinary care and would use a Bemidji location in an emergency. This petition will be shared with groups that can help us obtain after-hours emergency care. We believe this is a crucial first step toward a solution. Please read on for details…

Challenges and solutions

Three Bemidji veterinary practices kindly took time to discuss this issue with the petition authors. They identified the following challenges to emergency services: insufficient numbers of veterinarians and technicians to cover nights/weekends while providing daytime services at each clinic; unwillingness of some Bemidji practices to cooperate with others in a rotating emergency service to share the workload among multiple clinics; managing a large volume of calls from clients who do not know that their pet’s condition is less serious than it looks, and could safely wait until business hours; and past experience with emergency clients failing to pay bills.

There are several possible solutions to these issues:

• Local veterinary practices already in existence could provide after-hours emergency services. To make this feasible, multiple practices would need to agree to cooperate in a rotation, and/or hire more veterinarians and support staff. The community could help with fund-raising and measures to attract more veterinary staff/practices to Bemidji.
• Alternately, our community could work to attract a veterinary practice to Bemidji that specializes in emergencies. One example would be a regional emergency company like BluePearl Pet Hospital opening a location in Bemidji. (This is only an example, not an endorsement.)
• On a smaller-scale, challenges could be further eased with community support of veterinarians using telehealth triage services (Guardian Vets or other, not an endorsement), up-front payments for emergency services, and charitable fund-raising to support clients who cannot afford full-price in a true emergency.

Movement on this issue clearly requires community action, as we have been without after-hours emergency veterinary services for several years now.

How this petition will help

The goal of this petition is to demonstrate that there is urgent community need and strong support for after-hours emergency care in Bemidji. Veterinary businesses need to know that there is both a service gap and a viable market in this geographical area, and to know the community would value and support cooperative, creative solutions. Please sign this petition if you desire after-hours emergency veterinary care and would use a Bemidji location in an emergency. 

Please also share how lack of after-hours emergency care has affected you in the comments. Personal notes will help our petition draw attention. If you are able to safely do so, please share the general location where you live (“Bemidji”, “Bemidji Area”, “Bagley”, “northwest Minnesota”…) to prove that our signatures are coming from people who would use a local emergency service. We request that you keep comments focused on demonstrating our need, support, and market viability to petition recipients. If you would like to engage in more specific community discussion about potential solutions and action beyond this petition, please visit our Facebook page!

We will share this petition and its signatures directly with:

• Bemidji veterinary practices, who may hire more staff and/or participate in a rotation: Animal Care Clinic, Bemidji Veterinary Hospital, Headwaters Veterinary Center, Northern Veterinary Clinic
• Regional emergency clinics, who may be convinced to open a location in Bemidji: BluePearl Pet Hospital and Red River Animal Emergency Hospital
• The Minnesota Veterinary Medical Association and the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine. These groups may help us reach veterinarians/technicians with an interest in joining or opening a practice in the Bemidji area.
• The Bemidji City Council and the Headwaters Regional Development Commission, who could provide incentives and support for veterinary practices that provide after-hours emergency service.

We are open to your suggestions of additional places to send this petition. Feel free to give suggestions on our Facebook page. 

We aim to send the petition after 90 days, on March 10, 2024.