This petition is to address the lack of after hours emergency veterinary care and access in the Greater Binghamton and Broome County, NY areas and to petition and make all veterinarians in the area, including those in the New York counties of Tioga and Chenango aware of the sadness, angst and feelings of helplessness when a pet owner is faced with the need of after hours (and even in some cases) critical emergency care when it is unavailable and/or blatantly denied.
Currently the only after hours emergency veterinary care available is roughly an hour drive away at either Cornell Animal Hospital or at an emergency animal care facility in Clarks Summit, PA. A pet can die in that hour travel time.

This is simply one sharing of a critical pet emergency that ended badly.
"After a perfectly normal day for my 13 year old, indoor only cat, at 7:30 in the evening we heard him screaming.  Nothing we had ever heard before.  We ran to him and he was lying on his side breathing heavily, panting with his mouth open.  He was unable to stand.  We immediately called his vet.  They were just closing and told me they could not see him and that I should take him to Cornell Veterinary Hospital.  We put him in his carrier and left immediately for emergency care, an hour plus from our home.  In the care he continued to struggle to breath and periodically screamed.  About 10 minutes away from Cornell, he screamed once more and stopped breathing.  If we had been able to access emergency care locally, he may have been saved.  At the least, he could have been humanely euthanized to relieve his agony.  This is what having no emergency care available means. Please imagine a dog struck by a car and fatally injured not being able to receive help." Barbara P., Binghamton, NY

We, the undersigned believe lack of after hours emergency care to be unethical, as after all, veterinarians pledge an oath just as human medical doctors pledge theirs. We also believe and request that this terrible situation should be addressed and rectified by veterinarians of the above areas and that a rotating pool of after hours emergency veterinary care be reestablished as there, not too long ago, once was.