Standard of Veterinary Care

[kerry]

I'm pretty clueless about standards of veterinary care. Our cat had been sick for a while. Took it to our vet at PetsMart. They found an abcess probably caused by a cat bite. They drained it and gave antibiotics. Cat improved for about half a day and steadily went downhill. Took back to Petsmart vet a couple of days later. Gave more antibiotics and pain killers. Wednesday evening she couldn't stand up. Took her back to vet about 8pm. Vet diagnosted hematic encephalopathy and said without immediate treatment she would die. Recommended we take her to the 24 hr emergency hospital they use. Got there about 9 and authorized treatment. Got a call at 1130pm saying blood tests had come back and she was anemic. Blood count should be 24 but it was at 8. We authorized blood transfusion. Vet called at 7am next morning. Transfused and blood count was 12. Vet called back at 4pm said blood count had dropped to 10 and she needed another transfusion. We authorized the transfusion. Vet called back at 7am today said they hadn't done the transfusion since they didn't have any blood. They would look for some today. Cat died while being transfused at 10am.
So, my question is, is it reasonable to expect that an extremely sick cat in need of a transfusion, get the blood sooner than 16 hours later? Vet said she died of cardiac arrest as a result of lack of oxygen to the brain caused by the low blood count. This is a vet hospital with veterinarian surgeons on duty 24 hours.
So, before I raise a stink about the delay I need to know whether it's standard procedure for emergency vet hospitals to have blood on hand or readily accessible.