Central Veterinary Clinic & Hospital officially opened on 6th October 2023. It was a two-year long journey to get to that point, with lots of ups and downs in the process. Dr Meredith, co-director, has lived in Melbourne since she was born, and in Tarneit since 2005. She could see that Tarneit needed its own veterinary clinic. What started as a dream to open the first Tarneit Veterinary Clinic about two and a half years prior to opening, to serve the fastest growing community in the west, turned into a long-drawn-out story. A wise colleague once told me, “Buy an existing clinic. It’s easier than building your own.” They may have been right, but we got there in the end!
Location
It takes a lot of courage to build a veterinary clinic. It’s a very expensive process. Location is important. And in such a rapidly growing area, you have no idea if a clinic or corporate will suddenly appear just down the road from you. We were looking for somewhere convenient and prominent, with ample parking space, and with room to expand. And we wanted to establish the first veterinary clinic in Tarneit. (Our first set back was not registering the clinic name soon enough. I’d registered the domain name but got beaten to the clinic name registration by literally a month, by a clinic in Hoppers Crossing, not even in Tarneit!) Oh well, press ahead. After much looking, we’d finally found the perfect location.
Many who have been in the area ask, “Was this once a real estate office?” Indeed, it was. The site of Central Veterinary Clinic & Hospital was once the sales office for The Reserve Estate Tarneit. We have been told the site has been a childcare centre, a child tutoring facility, and a pathology centre, although perhaps not legally.
Planning permit:
First step was the planning permit through council, a process that took over 12 months. We were set back by a month because Colourbond bottle green for a shed colour was considered too vibrant for the area. “What colour is ok?” Eventually we presented three alternate plans with three colour options and said, “Just pick one”. Furthermore, despite the fact that the property was covered in non-native plants, only native plants were permitted in any landscaping plan. The planning permit saga is long and laughable. The day we received the planning permit was a day of relief and celebration!
Building permit:
After any planning permit comes the building permit. The building permit required many different assessments and reports by all kinds of engineers and experts, a very expensive and time-consuming process. This included drill boring to assess how the ground would hold-up in an earthquake, because we all know Tarneit is prone to them (not). The building permit process took about 6 months. As a result, in upgrading the building from a class 1 domestic building to a class 5 veterinary clinic, we can assure you that the building has passed rigorous inspection. It has passed electrical, plumbing, ventilation, fire safety, accessibility requirements, and more.
Construction, occupancy permit:
We finally had the go-ahead for construction in March 2023. We finally got to see our plans come to life. In the later stages, we were working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, to get the doors open. For a few months, Dr Meredith’s garage was filled with a very big, very heavy second-hand reception desk, which she cut and refashioned into the new reception desk for the clinic. Not getting off lightly, Dr Ebrahim’s loungeroom was filled floor to ceiling with equipment.
A major principle at Central Veterinary Clinic is recycling, for the environment. Thus, we have tried to recycle as much as possible in the construction. Consult room three’s vanity was picked up on the side of the road. Our surgery table comes from the previous Beaconsfield Veterinary Clinic. The office tables are second hand from Marketplace. And our waiting room chairs are ex-furniture from short-stay accommodation, courtesy of Boutique Stays.
We endeavoured to put together the highest quality veterinary clinic, with all the tools necessary to practise veterinary medicine to the highest standard. At central veterinary clinic, we have multiple anaesthetic machines, many fluid pumps, a fluid warner, comprehensive anaesthetic monitoring equipment including capnograph and blood pressure monitoring, dental machine, general and dental xrays, thorough diagnotics (tonometer, glucometer, coagulation machine, Idexx blood machines, in-house SNAP tests, microscopy, extensive surgical equipment, and much, much more. We also offer years of education and experience. With similar approaches to medicine, our directors, Dr Ebrahim and Dr Meredith, aim to be thorough, empathetic, and caring.
Our clinic doors opened officially on the 6th of October 2023.