Minnedosa Vet Clinic expanding

The Minnedosa Vet Clinic is moving forward with a project to double the size of its office, which has become too small to serve the community.

The Westman animal clinic aims to upsize its office from roughly 1,300 square feet to about 2,800 square feet, veterinarian Troy Gowan told the Sun in a recent interview. The clinic is currently accepting proposals for the expansion that would consist of adding a new building, and renovating the existing building to reorganize space.

The request for proposals for contractors is set to end on Jan. 23.

If all goes according to plan, the clinic is hoping to break ground on the project in the spring of 2026 and operate from its new office by the winter.

The expansion would increase the number of rooms in the clinic from three to five, would create space for storing inventory, give employees a room for their breaks and expand surgical space, among other things, Gowan said. The upgrade would make room for hiring another veterinarian and potentially one to two extra support staff, which the clinic is also looking for.

“It’s been that growth over time that’s really stimulated the need,” Gowan said. “We kind of hit that point in 2022, early 2021, where we were like, ‘We really could use more space to do the work that we’re doing.’”

Gowan said the Minnedosa Vet Clinic grew from roughly 125 new clients per year to over 400 during the pandemic. The clinic restricted new client intake, and limited the area to the Minnedosa and District Veterinary Services coverage area to cope with demand. It now receives around 200 new clients per year.

Balancing space for emergencies, routine care and everything in between can be difficult in the current 1,300-square-foot office, he said. The team consists of three vets, four registered veterinarian technicians, an assistant and two receptionists.

“It’s difficult at times, right?” Gowan told the Sun in a recent interview. “Our primary goal here is to provide care to as many patients as we possibly can and provide it at a high quality. And when we have limits on space, it really inhibits that. It can be difficult to juggle multiple things at the same time.”

The Minnedosa and District Veterinary Services Board, which oversees the clinic, filed an application to the province requesting roughly $1.5 million in grant support for the expansion, said Barry Cook, chair of the board. As of early December, Minister of Municipal and Northern Relations Glen Simard said that the announcements of that grant program were set to arrive in the coming days, but didn’t say which applicants were chosen to receive funding.

The vet clinic board received about $30,000 in support from the Minnedosa and District Foundation this fall. The hope is that the building will attract vets in a tight market, a member of the foundation told the Sun.

Cook agreed.

“We’ve been trying to do this for quite a while,” Cook told the Sun in a recent interview. “Part of the reason to expand the clinic is that we’re hoping they’ll hire a new vet.”

The expansion is important to the area to attract staff and fulfill growth, said Ian Drul, reeve of the Municipality of Harrison Park.

“By expanding the building, it will bring more vets to the area, and with more vets, you’ll have greater service,” he said. “If you have a better building, then you can attract, and shorten up wait times.”

Drul and Gowan told the Sun that it’s difficult to staff veterinarians. Cook cited an anecdote in which a local graduate had moved to British Columbia after being offered a $100,000 bonus. The residents of the veterinary service area in Westman say that it’s hard to secure a vet service in a competitive market.

“It’s a greater issue, not just in our area,” Drul said. “(You hear the same thing) if you talk to a lot of municipalities that are trying to keep their vet clinic going, because there’s just not the vets there used to be in the area.”

The clinic accepts new patients in its coverage area including the Town of Minnedosa, the RM of Elton, the Municipality of Clanwillian-Erickson, the Municipality of Harrison Park, the Rural Municipality of Minto-Odanah and the Rural Municipality of Oakview. The communities pay into a common fund and the province provides some funding that supports the veterinarian office, Gowan said.

The expansion should allow he clinic to meet demand for roughly 25 years, he said.

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com