When love meets the bill: The cost of loving a pet in Singapore

SINGAPORE – At 9.40am on a Friday, veterinary acupuncturist Kek Shing Jye is in a consultation room at Animal Wellness Referral Centre (AWRC) administering acupuncture to Zaizai, a 17-year-old Yorkshire terrier.

Zaizai suffered a stroke in March 2025, and lost muscle mass. The treatment is to help improve his mobility. His owner, Carol Ang, 47, takes a day of leave from work each month to bring him in.

“I’ve had him his whole life,” says the finance professional. “He is family, and I don’t see spending money on him as a waste.”

AWRC in Bukit Timah is one of a handful of veterinary facilities in Singapore that offers round-the-clock care. On one Friday in April, The Straits Times spent 24 hours here, from 8.30am to 8.30am the next day.

From the moment the day shift begins, the facility runs a non-stop cycle of consultations, scans, surgery and emergencies that does not slow when night falls. By night, the pace changes but does not ease. The waiting room stays open, the phones keep ringing and the staff keep working.

Pet ownership in Singapore has surged over the past decade. The number of licensed dogs climbed from 59,000 in 2011 to 91,000 by early 2025.

Cat ownership has also grown too. Since the National Parks Board (NParks) rolled out its Cat Management Framework in September 2024 – lifting the longstanding HDB cat ban while introducing mandatory microchipping and licensing – some 41,000 pet cats had been licensed by August 2025.

Yet emergency veterinary care has not expanded at the same pace. According to the Public Registry of AVS-Licensed Veterinary Centres, only four hospitals operate with a vet physically on-site at all times. Others offer partial after-hours cover, with some clinics staying open until midnight or later and others relying on on-call services.

There are no official records showing how many round-the-clock veterinary facilities operated a decade ago. But the cluster of recent openings – including Beecroft Animal Specialist & Emergency Hospital in 2021 and AWRC in 2022 – points to an industry still catching up with demand.

The price of being prepared

Patrick Maguire, a specialist veterinary surgeon and co-founder of Beecroft, says admissions have been rising by about 15 per cent each year.

“We are seeing more emergency cases,” he says. “Our ICU is much fuller, especially at night.”

The most visible strain on the system is cost. Running a modern emergency hospital requires specialist staff, expensive equipment and enough supplies to handle cases that may arrive at any hour.

Back at AWRC, the morning’s cases are already stacking up. What was meant to be a routine post-operative visit for Coco quickly turns urgent when veterinarian Tammie Wong finds out that the 14-year-old poodle has a fever and a hard and bloated stomach.

“We need a stomach tube to release the pressure,” Wong tells a nurse. “If we don’t release it, the pressure could affect her organs and she may go into shock.”

Coco’s fight against cancer has come at a steep price. Diagnosed with a mast cell tumour in March 2025, she underwent surgery that cost more than $4,000. When the tumour returned a year later, a second operation cost another $8,000. Her owner, retiree Jan Tan, has since spent a further $7,200 on a cancer vaccine and more than $3,000 on natural killer (NK) cell immunotherapy.

Tan notes wryly that she cannot use her CPF funds to cover these bills.

As the owner of 10 dogs over her lifetime, she has witnessed pet care fees skyrocket first-hand. A simple diarrhoea case that once cost under $100 can now cost well above that. Consultation fees, she adds, have “pretty much doubled”.

Yet, she concedes that the higher prices come with much better treatment options.

“Previously, I had a dog with a mammary gland tumour, but only chemotherapy and radiation were available. Now, advanced options like NK cells and vaccines are available.”

Despite the financial strain and lack of certainties, Tan has never wavered. “There is no guarantee when it comes to treatments,” she says. “But I feel I have to see it through. I would regret it if we didn’t do everything we could.”

Similar advanced treatments are becoming increasingly common across Singapore’s veterinary sector, offering owners more choices but also substantially higher costs.

Veterinary charges in Singapore are shaped by several structural pressures. Emergency consultation fees – which do not include diagnostics and treatment – at 24-hour hospitals often cost between $128 and $250, with after-hours surcharges added on top. X-rays ($100 to $250), ultrasound scans ($300 to $500), hospital stays (from $200 to $500 a night) and intensive care ($500 to $1,000 a night) all add to the final bill.

Depending on severity, a vomiting or diarrhoea case might cost from $60 to $500 while a serious trauma case can quickly run into the thousands.

Maguire says a large part of the cost comes from the infrastructure needed to keep a facility open around the clock.

“The MRI and CT scanners at Beecroft are human-grade machines costing millions to buy and maintain,” he says. “We need those people there. We need those drugs there. We need our doors open, even if nothing comes in that night.”

Jean-Paul Ly, founder of AWRC and a vet for more than five decades, points to other cost pressures. Rents and wages have risen as clinics compete for a limited pool of veterinarians and nurses. Tighter hiring rules for overseas-trained veterinary technicians have further squeezed manpower, while imported medicines, disposable supplies and the arrival of premium-priced foreign specialist groups have all pushed up costs.

Unlike human healthcare, veterinary treatment receives no government subsidy. The result is a system where the price of being prepared is passed directly to pet owners.

The cost of certainty

Some owners say bills rise quickly when they are recommended scans and diagnostics. That has fuelled complaints that vets are over-testing.

Esther Lam, head veterinarian at Paws N’ Claws Veterinary Surgery, says the reality is more complicated.

She says: “Many diseases in animals present with similar outward symptoms like lethargy, vomiting and appetite loss. Animals also tend to hide signs of illness until they are quite unwell.”

Because pets cannot describe pain or symptoms, vets often need diagnostics to narrow down what is actually wrong. Lam says she gives owners options ranging from conservative monitoring to more thorough investigation, depending on the severity of the case.

“If owners decline certain tests, we explain what to watch for at home and follow up after the consultation,” she says. “Most concerns stem not from reluctance to care for their pet, but from wanting to understand the reasoning behind our recommendations.”

What some owners see as unnecessary testing, many vets regard as a way to rule out serious disease before it is too late. The challenge, they say, is as much about communication as it is about clinical judgment.

The price of saying yes

For many pet owners, the pressure is emotional as well as financial.

At 11am, Jason Ho, 53, is sitting with his wife before Ly at AWRC. Their four-year-old French bulldog, Macy, can no longer stand after being diagnosed with intervertebral disc disease.

She has already undergone three sessions of dimethyl sulfoxide therapy and hyperbaric oxygen treatment, each costing around $800 to $1,000. The results have been limited.

Ly explains the remaining option: spinal surgery to relieve pressure on the spinal cord. It is invasive, expensive and not guaranteed to work.

“It’s not going to be cheap,” he says. The operation could cost between $10,000 and $20,000, and a CT scan alone would cost several thousand more.

Ho, who works in the automotive industry, and his wife do not say what they will decide.

“She is such a loving and happy pet,” Ho says. “Every time I come home from work, she greets me and it makes my day.”

That kind of attachment helps explain why many owners continue to spend heavily even when the outcome is uncertain.

Ann Boh says she has stopped keeping track of how much she has spent on her 10-year-old pomeranian, Kookie, who has degenerative valve disease. Heart surgery would cost more than $40,000 and requires a specially trained surgical team to fly in from Japan.

“I will do anything within my means to prolong her life,” says the IT professional.

Such stories are becoming increasingly common. They reflect a shift in the relationship between Singaporeans and their pets. Once regarded largely as companions, dogs, cats and other animals are now, for many owners, family members, and that changes what people are prepared to spend when illness strikes.

Insurance and blind spots

Pet insurance is growing in Singapore, but it remains limited.

A handful of insurers now offer policies, including Liberty, Income, CIMB, Etiqa and MSIG. Premiums vary widely by breed and age. At MSIG, yearly premiums for dogs start at $319 for a 16-week-old puppy. At other insurers, comprehensive dog coverage can exceed $1,400 a year.

Demand is rising. Income says the uptake of its Happy Tails product has grown by more than 20 per cent year on year since 2015, while MSIG says its pet policies grew by double digits in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the previous quarter.

According to Income, claims have also increased, with hospitalisation and surgery bills often ranging from $3,000 to more than $10,000.

“Rising veterinary costs, driven in part by more advanced and specialised treatments, are a key factor,” says an MSIG spokesperson. “At the same time, pet owners are increasingly willing to pursue more comprehensive care for their pets, contributing to the overall increase in claims.”

Coverage, however, remains limited. Many policies exclude pre-existing or hereditary conditions, impose age limits or cap payouts below the cost of major procedures.

That is a serious gap for older animals. By the time a pet becomes ill, it may already be uninsurable. Some policies also make owners pay the full bill upfront before seeking reimbursement, which is difficult in an emergency.

Beecroft is currently the only veterinary hospital working directly with Income Insurance to ease that burden through a Letter of Guarantee arrangement, meaning owners are not required to pay the entire bill before leaving.

“It takes one thing off your plate at the worst possible moment,” says Maguire.

For now, though, this remains the exception rather than the rule.

Can regulation lower the bill?

In April 2026, Parliament passed the Veterinary Practice Act, the Government’s biggest intervention in the sector so far.

The law establishes a Veterinary Council, introduces formal registration requirements for veterinarians and raises the maximum fine for unqualified practice to $50,000. According to NParks and the Animal & Veterinary Service (AVS), the aim is to close gaps in registration, education and discipline while giving the public greater assurance of professional standards.

The sector has grown rapidly. The number of licensed veterinarians has increased more than fivefold over two decades to about 700. Between 2021 and 2025, AVS received an average of about 25 formal complaints a year against veterinarians.

Some MPs raised affordability during the Bill’s debate. Henry Kwek (Kebun Baru) argued that pet care “must not be the preserve of the wealthy”, while Louis Chua (Sengkang GRC) and Cai Yinzhou (Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC) called for fee benchmarks and better price disclosure. The Government said AVS would study proposals on cost transparency, including itemised billing and fee disclosures.

Vets interviewed by ST say that while regulation can improve standards and strengthen accountability, it cannot make veterinary care inherently cheaper. It also cannot lower the cost of MRI and CT scanners, specialist equipment, imported medicines, round-the-clock staffing or rising rents. Nor can it eliminate the difficult choices owners face when modern medicine offers treatments that are possible, but painfully expensive.

Ly says the legislation is only a partial fix.

“The new Bill can only address part of the problem,” he says. “It will only be effective if the veterinarians sitting on the investigating board are experienced and impartial. It does not confront one of the main issues leading to discontent and disputes, and that is miscommunication.”

Lam welcomes the discussion around transparency, but cautions against a one-size-fits-all approach. “The cost of managing two patients with the same condition can differ significantly depending on the severity of disease, diagnostics required, hospitalisation needs and whether complications arise,” she says.

That is why fee benchmarks may help as a guide, but cannot fully replace case-by-case explanations, she adds.

The phone keeps ringing

At 11pm, Lynn Lum is paying a bill of around $3,000 after spending most of the day at AWRC with her 11-year-old French bulldog, Sherlock, whose cancer has spread to his lungs and liver.

The supply chain manager, who works in the pharmaceuticals industry, takes him for regular traditional Chinese medicine sessions and says she will spend as much as she can afford.

“He is like a son to me,” she says.

Not far away, a phone call comes in from a family whose dog’s leash has been caught between lift doors for more than 30 minutes. The dog is on the way in an animal ambulance.

Thomas Cheong, the vet on night duty, briefs his team. An oxygen mask and catheter are prepared before the dog arrives.

Earlier that evening, Anirudh Anand, 19, had called the Singapore Civil Defence Force after his family’s six-year-old maltipoo, Milo, became trapped in the lift with its leash caught between the doors.

After lift engineers freed them, the full-time national serviceman arranged for an animal ambulance. By the time Milo reaches AWRC, Cheong is ready.

“He’s stable, but let’s do an X-ray to make sure there are no fractures,” he says.

After 20 minutes, Milo is cleared and goes home the same night.

“He means a lot to me,” says Anirudh. “I was very nervous the whole time. I want him to be fine and recover well.”

It is nearly 1am.

Lee Yizhen, 29, is keeping watch over her family’s 14-year-old corgi, Goldey, in a small private room. Her sister had been there earlier, and she has taken over the midnight shift.

“We don’t want to leave him alone while he is going through treatment. We just want him to know we are here,” says the nurse.

Dawn breaks. A nurse wheels another patient towards the treatment area as the morning staff begin arriving for work. Cheong and the overnight team head home. The consultations begin again.