The Guyana Veterinary Association is joining its sister associations and colleagues around the world in celebrating World Veterinary Day today under the theme “Veterinarians as Essential Health Workers”.
In a statement, the Veterinary Association applauded this choice of theme which promotes the concept of veterinarians being an integral and essential component of the global team of Health Workers.
“This global One Health approach could not be better exemplified than by the Government of Guyana aptly recognizing local veterinarians as essential health workers during the recent Covid-19 Pandemic. A commendable and avant-garde decision”, it said.
Outside the sphere of what is perceived as the traditional practice of veterinary medicine, the statement said that veterinarians are already contributing both directly and indirectly; and rightly so, to other aspects of human health and wellbeing.
“Thankfully and rewardingly, more and more scientific veterinary studies are confronting human health issues which are emerging in our fast moving, social media driven world. We are not referring here to the emergence of zoonoses such as “Bird Flu” (Avian Influenza) and Rabies but rather, reference is hereby being made to ailments relating to anxiety disorders, recuperation from surgery, PTSD and other serious, life-threatening pathologies, where an animal’s therapeutic association with human patients is achieving encouraging healing results. Veterinarians daily work hand in hand with their human medicine colleagues in research and practice in diverse areas such as surgery, organ transplant, epidemiology and immunology”, the statement said.
It added that the knowledge and practice of a veterinarian dealing with household companion animals and horses is increasingly being employed to combat mental disorders and behavioural abnormalities in prisons, mental health institutions and substance abuse clinics.
Particularly noteworthy is the use of animals in the therapy and rehabilitation of children with congenital mutisms and neurological disorders.
Notwithstanding professional efforts to improve the lives of patients and wards and relationships with the animals’ caregivers, the statement said that there is much still to be achieved for veterinarians to be unequivocally recognized as Essential Health Workers and to be fully integrated with the undertakings of all the other actors involved in the perpetuation of the noble One Health ideal.
The GVA said it would like to recognize the contributions of Dr. Steve Surujbally and Dr. Nicholas C. A. Waldron to the writing of this message.
