A SUMMER AT SEA. Author : ABI COLLINSON. Categories : Vets. Date : January 20, 2014

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1 Vet Times The website for the veterinary profession A SUMMER AT SEA Author : ABI COLLINSON Categories : Vets Date : January 20, 2014 ABI COLLINSON recalls her adventures and travels as a veterinary volunteer, taking part in a US Navy-led humanitarian mission to provide aid to islands in the South Pacific AFTER working with a game capture team in South Africa for seven weeks as a prevet school 22-year-old, I developed a bad case of itchy feet. Nine years on, it shows no sign of abating. Throughout vet school and since graduating, I have tried to combine travel with work, which has led to some interesting forays into the world of international veterinary medicine, from blood sampling Maasai goats in Kenya to deworming camels at the Pushkar camel fair in India. So, when I heard about an annual humanitarian mission led by the US Navy, which included civilian vets as part of the team, I jumped at the chance. For 2013, the mission was to travel to Samoa, Tonga, Republic of Marshall Islands, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands. Pacific Partnership is the largest disaster response-preparation mission in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. Working at the invitation of each host nation, US Navy forces are joined by NGOs and partner nations that include Australia, Canada and New Zealand to improve maritime security, conduct humanitarian assistance and strengthen disaster response preparedness. The veterinary NGO represented onboard is World Vets and there are also doctors, nurses, dentists and engineers representing a number of other organisations. In much of the developing world, animals and people are closely reliant. If people lose their animals after a disaster, they may be left with no source of income and no way to rebuild their lives. By preparing communities for the effects of disasters on their animals and by improving basic animal 1 / 19

2 health, it can help reduce the need for long term aid as they are better able to be self-sufficient. Travelling on the job As I had to leave my job to participate, I used the opportunity to travel south-east Asia first, before flying to Hawaii to embark the USS Pearl Harbor. Not a bad location to travel to and one of the reasons I suspect my friends insisted on calling the trip a cruise, despite assuring them I would be working very hard in less than luxurious conditions. The ship was difficult to navigate around at first; it seemed to be a maze of passageways, ladders and scuttle holes and signs such as, Danger: this opens to a missile blast area. Do not loiter. Launch may occur without warning. There were 48 people in my berth, which was divided into areas for six people with three bunks on top of each other. I was also introduced to the concept (enforced) of navy showers, which means rinse, lather (with no water running), rinse and not for longer than about three minutes necessary to conserve water when underway. There were personnel embarking and disembarking at various different points, but, at its maximum, there were about 700 people onboard. Every morning, if we were on the ship, we had to muster at 730am, which involved standing in formation with the company you were assigned to while they checked everyone was present and passed any important information. Wake-up call (reveille) was at 6am every morning and lights out at 10pm. First port of call Our first mission port was Samoa, which we reached after a week of sailing. Our team was initially made up of five vets and two vet techs (equivalent of vet nurses) and a vet student from World Vets (an American NGO), two US Army vets (one of whom was the lead veterinary planner) and three US Army vet techs. Our first engagement on Samoa was a community health fair. Pacific Partnership s aim was to move away from providing care and towards sustainable education. The health fairs were mainly focused on medical health care, but we had a stand to educate people, especially children, about animal welfare, dog bite avoidance and to be aware of zoonotic diseases. We also visited three schools in the area to talk about the same topics. The rest of our engagements were split between the Ministry of Agriculture, the Animal Protection Society (APS) and spay/neuter/ wellness clinics in more rural areas. APS is an organisation in Apia and provides the only companion animal veterinary care for Samoa. The country has a large problem with stray dogs and most people who keep them do so to guard their property, rather than as pets, which leads to problems with aggression and dog bites. This was to be a recurring theme on all the islands. APS is staffed by Samoans, but reliant on international aid and overseas volunteer vets. A large animal team gave lectures to the Samoan vet and other animal health workers, while also attending farm calls and providing training on topics such as postmortems. 2 / 19

3 We started surgery later in the week, setting up clinics in fales, which are openwalled, roofed structures. The service proved very popular, with owners waiting with their animals sometimes for hours. It wasn t uncommon to have entire families crowded around the surgery table watching their dog being spayed. Luckily, we had some enthusiastic army nurse volunteers who came to help us out and soon adjusted to drawing up drugs, monitoring anaesthetics and recovering animals postsurgery instead of humans. As well as spays and neuters, we also performed amputations, enucleations and treated a huge wound that had been caused by a machete. Unfortunately, malicious attacks like this on dogs are not uncommon. Dogs were given an ACP/ morphine pre-med and then ketamine and diazepam were given in combination for induction and topped up during surgery as necessary. This is a good protocol for field surgery as the pre-med drugs enable good handling of animals and the anaesthetic drugs used have a good margin of safety, are easy and reliable to use and have minimal effects on blood pressure and heart rate. Given the conditions, it was accepted levels of sterility were sub-optimal so antibiotic cover was given. An NSAID was also given to every patient. We performed surgery on cats, although not as many presented, and they were given an IM dose of butorphanol/ dexdomitor and ketamine without a pre-med. Laundry baskets and cardboard boxes had to be used as improvised recovery areas for the cats as carry cases were non-existent, most being brought in (very reluctantly) by means of a firm grip or a piece of string around their necks. Tonga clinics It took two days to sail to the port of Tonga. Tonga has a vet based on the main island of Tongatapu and we provided large animal training here. We also worked with South Pacific Animal Welfare, a New Zealand-based NGO that visits the island every three months to run the clinic and provide vaccination, deworming and de-sexing clinics. They have a clinic base on the outskirts of the capital, Nuku Alofa, and we rotated between working here and taking part in the de-sexing clinics that had been organised in more rural areas. The logistics were a bit different as the ship was too big to dock port side. Initially, this meant almost a two-hour commute each way on the landing craft utility (a smaller boat), but, after an occasion where the seas were too rough to get back to the ship one night, it was decided to base people onshore. People were divided up across the island; the vet team stayed in dorm rooms at the Tongan soccer federation, which were more spacious than the ship. Again, the surgery clinics proved very popular. We tended to be in more indoor locations such as churches and community halls. The majority of operations conducted were spays and castrates, but we also performed amputations, stitch ups and mass removals. We were also using a nonsurgical form of neutering for some dogs, which was donated to the mission. The army vets had both attended training to use this. It is called Zeuterin and involves administering a solution of zinc gluconate into each testicle, making it incapable of producing sperm. Dosage is calculated by 3 / 19

4 measuring the maximum width of each testicle with a calliper, which gives the corresponding dosage. The procedure is relatively painless and usually can be done under sedation rather than anaesthesia. All the animals we saw had heavy _ ea and tick burdens and we gave topical selamectin to everything we touched. On days when there were no veterinary engagements (which was rare; the veterinary team was one of the busiest aboard the mission), we had the opportunity to participate in community relations events such as school visits, painting buildings and sports competitions. This was a good chance to see more of each island and learn a bit more about Pacific culture. After the mission in Tonga was complete, our next port was Noumea, New Caledonia, for two days of liberty to recharge the batteries before the second rotation of the mission. IMAGE US Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Carlos MVazquez 4 / 19

5 II/Released. Puppies waiting for a check-up at a rural clinic on the island of Tongatapu, Tonga. 5 / 19

6 Top inset: Ania Snazjderska, a volunteer vet, is assisted by US Army nurse Lieutenant Robinson. Inset right: Stitching up the ear of a dog that had been in a right assisted by Sergeant Lynn Marsh, a vet tech with the US Army. 6 / 19

7 Top inset: Ania Snazjderska, a volunteer vet, is assisted by US Army nurse Lieutenant Robinson. 7 / 19

8 Inset right: Stitching up the ear of a dog that had been in a right assisted by Sergeant Lynn Marsh, a vet tech with the US Army. Below: World Vets volunteer Abi O Connor talks to Samoan schoolchildren about avoiding dog bites and how to treat animals. IMAGES: Amanda Saavedra 8 / 19

9 Above left: a surgery clinic taking place in a fale on the outskirts of Apia, Samoa. IMAGES: Amanda Saavedra 9 / 19

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12 Above right: a Samoan woman brings her cat to be neutered. IMAGES: Amanda Saavedra 12 / 19

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14 Inset: a Tongan girl waits with her puppy for a check-up. IMAGES: Amanda Saavedra 14 / 19

15 Above left: Captain Linda Jones, a registered nurse with the US Army, monitors the anaesthetic for a bitch spay during a surgery clinic. 15 / 19

16 IMAGES: Amanda Saavedra 16 / 19

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18 Above right: a surprise visitor to one of the companion animal wellness and de-sexing clinics in Tonga. IMAGES: Amanda Saavedra The veterinary team for the first rotation of Pacific Partnership 13 in Samoa. IMAGES: Amanda Saavedra 18 / 19

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