What annoys me about this is that I can understand if it's a vet on call who comes to your house or meets you at the surgery in the middle of the night and they aren't supposed to be 'on duty' other than a call out (so it's disturbing their personal time) but the thing is, for most vet surgeries and hospitals the vet is being paid a flat rate for hospital/out of hours shifts on a rota system. It's usually only branch salaries that are flat rate plus an 'on commission' rate.
So the vet is being paid a flat rate whether seeing anyone or not, but owners get charged 4 times the consult.
This ESPECIALLY pee's me off when it's a hospital that you go to, where there is usually a night vet on duty every night irrelevant of how many consults/inpatients there are.
Rant over.