SPCA driver was out attending to calls

I REFER to the letter, 'How we treat animals says much about us' (ST, Dec 15), in which the writer said the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) had said it was too busy to rescue a cat in distress in the Clementi West area.

The SPCA takes a very serious view of this and has started investigating the matter. I would be grateful if Mr Seah Liang Chiang could call me on 6287-5355 with more details of what happened that night.

In the meantime, we have established a few facts. The Clementi West Neighbourhood Police Post informed us that police received the call at 9.14 pm on Dec 8. Around that time, the SPCA emergency driver was attending to three other emergencies.

Between 8.30 and 8.55pm, he attended to a luohan fish abandoned in a plastic bag at Bukit Batok. At 9.15pm, he rescued an injured baby pigeon that had fallen from its nest at Jurong East Street 21. The driver then took the fish and the pigeon to a veterinarian. After that, he attended to a call about a cat in a drain in the vicinity of Centrepoint Shopping Centre.

The SPCA apologises to Mr Seah and his wife for any miscommunication that may have arisen. Our staff are under strict instructions to assist any member of the public who reports an animal in distress.

The SPCA tries to respond to every emergency call as quickly as possible. But we are not always able to attend to each case immediately as, due to limited funds, we have only one driver at night.

We hope the public understands that as the only charity that has a 24-hour animal emergency service, we receive many calls each day. In this instance, as previous calls were being attended to, there would have been a wait of more than an hour.

I would like to thank the Clementi West NPP for stepping in to rescue the cat, and Mr and Mrs Seah for reporting the case and helping the distressed animal.

DEIRDRE MOSS (MS)
Executive Officer, SPCA