Page 44 - eclipse - Autumn 2018

CLASSNOTES
A trip to Zimbabwe by David Beeston
About a year ago, I travelled to Zimbabwe with Wildlife Vets International (WVI) to aid in a rabies vaccination and neutering programme, hosted
by the Painted Dogs Conservation charity. From overpopulation of our domesticated canine friends impacting on the wild African Painted Dogs, to baboon attack wounds, to numerous cases of transmissible venereal tumours (TVTs), the trip was so much more than a “neuter clinic”.
The veterinary team was headed up
by Steve Philp, of The International Zoo Vet Group, who had decided to swap his big cat medicine for some smaller furry friends for the week. Included in the team were myself, a final year Liverpool vet student and another Liverpool graduate who had taken up residence in Zimbabwe a few years ago. We had several volunteers from corporate sponsors with no
prior animal handling experience to assist us, so training them to monitor anaesthetics on the job was tough!
Each day started by collecting tables
The WVI/PDC team after a hard day’s work
from a local primary school and heading to a location central to multiple villages. People were walking up to 5km to have their domestic dogs neutered, as local veterinary care was very limited on a day-to-day basis. Setting up shop with some make shift surgical theatres we would start around 8am and work our way through the queues of people.
Language barriers meant we were frequently seeing patients whose only description was “blood” and fingers pointing at genitalia. Unfortunately, TVTs are very common due to a complete lack of population control. With no option for chemotherapy, and euthanasia being religiously unacceptable in many cases, our only alternative was neutering and debulking of some nasty tumours under anaesthetic.
For a new-graduate with very little surgical experience, the trip was terrifying. I had done one unsupervised bitch spay in my life, having started work only a few weeks prior, but getting stuck in really helped my confidence levels with each completed spay – my colleagues definitely noticed
a difference in my surgical skills when
I returned to work. Patients ranged from just a few months old to multiparous bitches. Even more scary however, was the addition of a roaming film crew who wanted to know exactly what we were doing to aid the local community.
The entire situation was a far cry from “ideal”, but we worked with what we had and tried to ration supplies. With over 1,400 dogs vaccinated against rabies, 55 bitches spayed and 65 dogs castrated, all within four days, we made a huge difference to the local population. I hope to return
to Zimbabwe with WVI in the next year, as it was certainly a rewarding experience for all parties involved!
Baboon injury 0 – Veterinary Team 1
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Myself, the not-so-super vet, blagging
my way through a discussion on neutering.