Analysis of companion animal clinics in Istanbul in terms of some physical structures, technical equipment, patients and management

Year 2021, Volume: 5 Issue: 2, 87 - 97, 31.08.2021

Canberk Balaban , Halil Güneş

https://doi.org/10.30704/http-www-jivs-net.964767

Abstract

With the increasing in companion animal (pet) adoption in the recent years, clinics are now becoming businesses enterprises. In parallel with this increase in ownership, a significant number of veterinarians have started to choose companion animal area. According to records there is a total of 7915 ministry licensed enterprises in Turkey (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, 2021a) and 749 of them are established in Istanbul (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, 2021b). For this reason, Istanbul has been determined as the study site. In this research, it is aimed to determine the physical structures, technical equipment, patient distribution and to analyze the business activities and problems encountered of the companion animal veterinary clinics in Istanbul. Survey studies were conducted mostly face-to-face (96%) in 225 clinics in Istanbul between April 2019 and April 2021. At the end of the research, it was determined that the majority of the clinics in Istanbul were 100-200 square meters in size, single storey, with 1 examination room. In addition, 96,0% of the clinics are rental and 74,2% of which are sole corporation. In terms of investment, all clinics has a microscopic examination set. Vast majority (95.0%) have X-ray devices and 87.0% analysers. In terms of patient distribution, cats represents 61.9% and dogs represents 33.0%. In the age distribution, those between the ages of 2-5 constitute the largest group for both cats and dogs. The most common reason for the first visit is vaccination with 39.6%. With the research, it has been observed that clinics are generally small-medium in size (81,3%) and independent clinics. The fact that large and chain enterprises are almost non-existent causes both the amount of investment and the expenditure required for promotional activities to be high. From this point of view, it is clearly seen that clinics should become more professional enterprises. In order to do that veterinarians always try to improve business and administrative capabilities by attending to training events.

Keywords

Veterinary clinic, Cat, Dog, Management, Investment

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