The South Essex Wildlife Hospital, one of the busiest wildlife hospitals in the UK, has made a heartfelt plea for patience from the public after several incidents of verbal abuse directed at their staff.

The animal hospital, based in south Essex, has seen a surge in the number of injured animals they are asked to care for, leading to overwhelming demand on their limited resources.

In a recent statement, the charity revealed that the number of rescue callouts they receive has more than doubled, with more than 300 rescue requests coming in daily.

This surge comes as other wildlife organisations reduce or cease their attendance at wildlife casualties, leaving South Essex as the sole wildlife hospital in the area.

Despite their small and dedicated team working tirelessly to respond to as many calls as possible, the hospital highlighted that they are sometimes left with just a handful of people to manage both hospital operations and ambulance services.

As a result, there have been cases where they have been unable to attend to every callout, prompting frustration from the public.

However, the hospital has revealed that there has recently been a number of incidents of abuse directed to the charity for not being able to collect every single animal they are asked to.

A spokesman said: “A plea for patience.

“Believe it or not, we are actually a relatively small team and sometimes we are left with just a handful of people running the hospital and ambulance.

“Whilst we do try and get to as many calls as we can, there are only so many hours in a day and we can only do so much.

“Sadly, there has recently been a number of incidences of abuse directed towards those who man our rescue line and we have been called all sorts of names for not being able to collect every single animal we are asked to.

“We know that finding an injured animal is a stressful experience, but please remember that we really are trying to do the best we possibly can.

“We are looking into options for expanding what we are able to do but, in the meantime, please have patience and be understanding if we ask you to bring a patient into us directly.

“We are only trying to do our best for as many animals as possible.”