Today’s vets need to regain lost values

2011 was World Veterinary Year and veterinarians not only celebrated 250 years since Claude Baurgelat was authorised to open the first veterinary school in Lyon — considered to be the beginning of veterinary science — it was also the year that rinderpest was declared worldwide eradicated.

There are also other remarkable developments in veterinary science. Surgeons are now performing regularly successful operations that would have been unheard of 50 or even 30 years ago.

But by putting more and more emphasis on science and new technologies, veterinarians have lost the values portrayed by Alf Wright’s James Herriot as committed and caring professionals, working tireless for all animals great and small — an image veterinarians all over the world loved to be connected with.

Science nowadays looks only at specific problems in closely defined situations, which can be interesting and sometimes important but rarely have any relevance for the complex daily problems a vet is confronted with and modern technologies are expensive not only in itself but also because it needs specially-trained personnel. Veterinarian organisations are making the same mistakes as health services by promoting expensive multi-vet surgeries and pushing small basic practices out of business. While it is good and proper to have some specialised animal surgeries and hospitals where special operations and treatments can be performed, many animals will suffer when, for example, a pensioner can’t afford to have his old suffering dog put down, or a family can’t bring their children’s pet to the vet.

Farm animals also will get less medical attention, not only because the treatment will be more expensive than the financial benefit, but also because many highly trained computerised and specialised veterinarians can’t — or won’t — perform hard labour in a damp, dark shed in the middle of the night.

HB Schneider

Ballina

Co Mayo