Practice News
 A Busman's Holiday - Kate's report from her time abroadFriday 6th February, 2009
A Vet Abroad
So, I’d managed to convince everyone that a 6 month sabbatical from work was an excellent idea - I’d always wanted to do some voluntary work overseas – it was now just deciding where to go!
After a lot of internet research, talking to friends, reading books and staring at an atlas, I had my plan: 3 months in Grenada, West Indies, and 3 months in Southern Uganda, 2 totally separate and very different experiences!
So, bags packed (and hurriedly repacked at Gatwick due to ‘excessive weight’) I arrived in Grenada, W.I. After a long discussion to convince customs that the drugs and supplies I had with me were kindly donated by friends and colleagues for the sole use at the island’s animal shelter, and not for my own personal use or gain, I was finally allowed through and met by Peggy, the president of the island’s charity shelter GSPCA.
The GSPCA is a charity run shelter and clinic, with 3 full time staff, the rest of the help is volunteers: vets, kennel workers, and nursing staff. It relies heavily on donations both from volunteer workers, overseas and islanders themselves.
The primary aims are to provide islanders with low cost veterinary care, whilst also being heavily involved in the care treatment and welfare of many of the island’s street dogs. Much of this work is involving population care and control, I lost count of the number of dogs and cats we spayed and castrated during my time there. Rabies is also a problem on the island, and increasing awareness of this as a disease and its obvious human health impacts is also a large part of the program. Weekends were spent loading up the van with supplies and heading out to the more remote parts of the island and setting up free rabies vaccination clinics to encourage people to vaccinate their animals. We also set up a neutering clinic in a local school, and with the assistance of some enthusiastic veterinary students managed to neuter about 30 animals in a day which would otherwise have not been done!
I do hold my hands up though; it wasn’t all work work work..the island of Grenada and its smaller sister island of Carriacou are stunning islands and a fair amount of time did involve beaches, diving, trekking to waterfalls and the odd Pina colada so when my time came to leave to head onto the second part of my journey, I was beginning to wonder whether 6 months on a tropical island would have been a better idea!
A week to wash and repack clothes and then I set off for the second part of my trip…
...More of which next month!
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