This is a PodTalk independent production created in conjunction with the Meta and Walkley Foundation Public Interest Journalism Fund. Before we get started, this podcast includes conversations about suicide, mental health, and has some colourful language. So please take care when listening.
The past few years in Australia has tested us all. First, there was an extended drought, then fierce and furious bushfires, and finally, floods of biblical proportions. It's very fair to say that the country is faced an unprecedented sequence of natural disasters, as well as a pandemic. It's wrecked homes, businesses, and it's taken lives and livelihoods. And it's killed or injured millions upon millions of animals. We've all seen the images of thirsty koalas and mud covered kangaroos, many rescued by wildlife organisations able to do that work because of donations from the likes of you. The during these kinds of emergencies, or actually just on any given day, when a wombat or turtle or a possum is sick, it lands in the lap of a vet.
So a lot of vets want to work with wildlife, and they take that oath to look after all animals and wildlife is included in that. But wildlife, they don't come with a credit card.
Vet's treat our wildlife for free. That can be five to 10 cases a week at some vet clinics, more in regional areas. Sometimes it's at the end of a 10 hour day. Sometimes it's in the middle of the night, Regardless though, it's expected
There's no community investment and wildlife care, beyond the sort of charity shelters and the people who do fantastic work as volunteers in that space. But the community has an expectation that we have a healthy native fauna and flora and that you know, in times of crisis, you know, we don't even really have a prophet emergency response infrastructure in this country for how do we save animals and floods and fires and that's been demonstrated just overwhelmingly nationally, in the disasters that we've had.
We're blessed with an abundance of wildlife in Australia. Most of it is found nowhere else in the world. Our tourism relies on it, and the kangaroo and the emu literally symbolises who we are on the Commonwealth Code of Arms. If wildlife matters that much to us, and we know vets are already struggling with workload and burnout, is it fair to expect them to care for them to on top of everything else, and bear the cost?
I'm Caroline winter, a journalist and dog lover and you're listening to Sick As A Dog, Episode Five, Who's Responsible? This podcast is shining a light on a crisis that's making the people who care for our animals very sick. It's burning them out, forcing many to leave their jobs. And in some cases, it's killing them. This series is about finding answers to some very complex questions that affect us all and can't be ignored any longer.
Yeah, I love that sound. That is like the most relaxing sound. For me.
That sound is Rocky's heartbeat, Rocky, the olive Python. Rocky is under sedation and he's curled up under a heat lamp while the vets take a look at him.
I've taken x rays. And there were a couple of oddities. I guess in the X rays. His trachea was a bit torturous just cranial to the heart and we're not sure whether that was being pushed up by something, some soft tissue, maybe a tumour or fluid around the heart or something that is not really obvious when X ray
Something's wrong, but they're not sure quite what they say his body condition is good. They're worried because he hasn't eaten in two months.
So he gets offered food every fortnight I think yeah. And he just has been refusing food. They offered food yesterday and he refused again. And so we said I bring him in for a check.
They've already taken Bloods and now they're doing an ultrasound.
Things are moving around in there. I probably think a CT
I've not seen anything like that before. And be good to get some some good image of his lungs as well. Yeah.
I've never seen an Olive Python up close. Well, actually, I've never seen any python up close. It's pretty cool.
So that's his heart. Oh, well, and so they have a three chambered heart. So they're a bit different to us. So you kind of have to learn all the different anatomy of of what hmm, yeah, be gentle. And figure out is it normal? Is it not normal.
So Rocky is being treated inside the Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital, Australia's largest mobile wildlife hospital, and affectionately called Matilda. She's a high tech vet hospital inside a custom built semi trailer. Dr. Bree Talbot is the hospital's foundation veterinarian, and she takes me on a tour
It's 17.5 metres long, it's kind of broken down into three sections, even though there's no walls, but we have our triage section. So when an animal first comes in, the nurses or the vets will assess it and to see how sick it is and how immediate it's candidates to be. And then we put our triage,
it's an impressive fit out.
Then our middle section here is our sort of treatment area. So we've got our X ray table, X ray machine or ultrasound machine. And we sort of do a lot of our dirty procedures out here. So procedures that don't need a sterile area. So we're not entering body cavities and those kinds of things. So we can do those procedures out here. Then the section that we're standing in now is our lab section. So you know, we've got our microscope, our x ray machines, so this is also a portable so we can actually take this out into the field. If we need to go to a bushfire or a flood area and we need to take X rays, we can actually do
And the last section is a sterile surgery room.
So here we see any and every Australian native animal. So that can range from the little tiny lizards that you find in your garden, to frogs, to green sea turtles to koalas, kangaroos, to venomous snakes, to possums, feather tail gliders, anything that someone finds, we will see. And that's the good thing about us is we've got the knowledge that we can try and you know help these animals
Matilda is mobile and can be driven to natural disasters like bushfires and floods. But for the most part, she stays put on site at the Byron Bay Wildlife Sanctuary in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. Much of the work comes in from the public and wildlife carers who bring in wildlife that sick, injured or orphaned Since opening in late 2020. The team here has seen more than 3000 patients. Did you expect the demand would be so high?
Yes. We knew that there was the need. So the founders of this hospital are locals. So they knew that the need was there, because they are working in the local vet clinics here. And they were like, well, we don't have the time to see these and we don't have you know, some of us want to do it. Some of us don't have the knowledge but want to help. So how can we do this and that's when they actually came up with the idea of making a wildlife hospital appear.
Bree and I leave rocky to the other vet staff and take a walk and sit near a pond in the Wildlife Park. It's beautiful!
It is beautiful. So we're here by a nice little pond, but it's a native pond. So it actually feeds into one outside the property.
And some beautiful sounds I just love to birds.
I want to become a vet because I love animals. I was always intrigued by them when I was growing up. And I loved to be with them and help them I was always bringing home kittens that I would find dumped around the place I would pick up baby birds and try and feed them and put them back in the nest. So it was a bit of a natural progression to want to help animals and work with them.
Working at the wildlife hospital is Bree Talbot's dream job. And she earned her stripes after just a few years with the University of Sydney's wildlife and exotic practice. But her early years were in a mixed practice. And then small practice treating cows and horses and dogs and cats. All the while though, with a focus on wildlife.
So I was exposed to a lot of wildlife. And I would my bosses are pretty good. They would let me treat them and do a lot with them. But it had to be in my own time couldn't be when I was sitting paying clients. So I'd often stay back after work and see them or I'd miss my lunch break and do them or I'd come in on the weekend. But I never pushed the limit where I was encroaching on my paid work all the clients that were waiting that had the money. But at the same time I wanted to make sure that the wildlife were getting treated so I would walk them by my own drugs to sedate them with like I said I would stay after hours I would try and do it so that I still gave these animals their due respect and the treatment they needed but I was also very aware that I wasn't allowed to step over the line
Now if you've rescued an injured bird or a turtle or some other kind of wildlife and dropped it into the nearest vet, then you've absolutely done the right thing. But have you ever considered what happens next? When the vet has time they do an initial consult, which often includes X rays, giving the animal an anaesthetic, fluid therapy and hospitalisation. That part on average costs $550, then it could need surgery or ongoing treatment, or in many cases where wildlife has been hit by a car or attacked by another animal, it may need to be euthanized. Those options could cost hundreds of dollars more out of the vets pocket or absorbed by the clinic. If that vet is already struggling to treat your dog, or cat or Ferret, because of staff shortages, and there are up to 10 Wildlife cases coming through the door each week. Something's got to give.
The government doesn't give any money back to vets to help. And it's just an assumed thing that vets love animals. And that's a lot of the pressure that comes to vets is that we do love animals, we do want to help. And so people go well, you want to help this animal? What's another animal to your day? That's like, well, I've already been here for 14 hours. I haven't had lunch. I've been to the toilet once. But sure. I will go and look at this animal that's really sick. And it's been sitting in a box all day. Like that's not pressuring what the government should be going. Really no, that that's one of the highest suicide rates of any other profession. We know they've already got burnout, we already know that they're understaffed, there's not enough that's to cope with the demand. And then you've got this extra wildlife care on top. Shouldn't they go? Well, we there's a mismatch there? Shouldn't we be giving some help to these vets? Shouldn't we be funding more wildlife vets? And shouldn't we be then assisting and equipping these vets with the medications and supplies and the resources then look after them out of the vet clinic or in an area that can then take the stress off the actual vet clinic and look after those animals.
Vets do the work pro bono and they don't think it's right to charge you or I or wildlife carers to treat animals we or they don't own. And that's just the day to day, but multiply that by the 1000s during a bushfire or flood. And the time cost and mental load is huge. Wildlife is technically owned by the crown that is state and federal governments. But there's no funding to reimburse vets. The Australian Veterinary Association says that contributes considerably to the high levels of stress and poor mental health in the profession. And it's lobbied the federal government to reimburse vets who respond to disasters. Until that happens, private vets will continue to carry the load. And that's why the Byron Bay wildlife hospital is vital.
There shouldn't be something more in place and more some concrete that helps these wildlife because if we keep on the way that we're going, we're not going to have half of these species here. And then that's going to dramatically change our ecosystems. So people don't think about that. It's not all just one single thing. Everything is interconnected. And we can only do so much. There's only so much vet person to look after these animals. And so we need more. More help.
The hospital has two vets, including Bree, two vet nurses, five admin staff, and their CEO and founder Dr. Steven Van Mil. It costs $1.5 million dollars to run each year. And it's 100% not for profit. And that comes purely from donations with no government assistance to date.
We love our job, we want to help. And we want to take the pressure off other vets hospitals, because I've been in private practice. I've been in small animal practice. And I know that time is limited time is precious. And there is so much stress already. So if we can do that, that's a win for regular vets. It's a win for us because I get to do what I love. And then it's a win for wildlife because then they get treated with the respect they deserve, and the care and treatment that they deserve. And then hopefully that means then the ecosystem wins because we get those animals back out there that can then breed, do the things that they want to do, do what they're supposed to do. And everyone's happy. I know that's a really, really rose coloured way of looking at it. But that's what I strive to do every day.
Many of the issues that plague vets today have existed for years, but that intensified during and now post the COVID pandemic as pet ownership boomed and with the demand for vets See, the problems are also not native to Australia. The shortages, burnout rate client abuse and the rest are something vets are facing around the world. And it's one other countries are also working to solve. But as a proud, often private profession full of perfectionist, it's only relatively recent that as an industry, vets have started talking about their mental health struggles and the suicide rate, or have asked for help.
From a customer service industry, and we're in history industry where shit happens.
That's Dr. Warrick Vale.
If you vaccinate a puppy that was perfectly healthy and will go home, it'll drop dead, or may not be the vaccine may not be the vaccine, but it's your problem to deal with. And I can't remove that from a young man's career. And I don't want that to destroy them. I don't want them to think well, this is too hard. It is very hard, but good practices will have the skills and, and be able to mentor those vets and support them through what is going to be really painful and really difficult. We've got to increase the business competency of employers, and if they want their workforce to be sustainable and they want their workforce to be mentally and healthy, then we need to work differently. We need to work in bigger teams, we need to work less hours we need to work with better renumeration, and we need to work with better support for each other.
Warrick Vale is a longtime horse vet. He's also Past President of the Australian Veterinary Association. For 20 odd years, he ran a large horse hospital where his life revolved around back to back surgeries emergencies and on call cases. Now he spends his days in a mobile vet van, visiting horse owners across the Swan Valley in Perth, north-eastern suburbs. And today, I'm along for the ride. And in between patient visits, we talk about his life, his time as head of the AVA and the mental health of his fellow vets.
When I first took over the chair, although I was aware of before that, but probably not the real extent of the issue was, you know, one of the unfortunate tasks that I had to do was to, you know, write letters of condolences to family and colleagues and people of people in the profession that had died and past members and so forth. But the tragedy of writing letters to that sort of suicide, which was just frequent, too frequent, was really overwhelming for me, I found it really shocking. I know I shouldn't have done because I knew the statistics were concerning. And I knew that the mental health of the profession had been a challenge I'd had mental Hillary
Warwick Vale understands the mental toll of being a vet. And he talks openly about his own experience with depression. It's something he says helped frame his focus when he was in the top job.
I was hoping maybe ignorantly before I became president that we tick that box. And we were doing a good job with it as a profession as a as a veterinary community. But it became apparent to me personally that maybe we weren't maybe we couldn't say that we ticked that box, maybe we couldn't really, you know, be proud of the results. I mean, we were doing a lot in that space. But were we doing the right things? Were we getting the results that we should be getting?
So he went looking for answers. He put a call out to the profession to look at mental health, again, to see if as an industry they were doing enough. And it became apparent that they weren't and that they were in a workforce crisis.
Did we not have enough there was too much work. Was it supply and demand problem? Or was it you know, where was the issue and you know, someone eloquently described it as a leaky bath, where we're putting lots of vents in the top, but they're leaking at the bottom. And one of the factors that they were leaving was because they were unhappy. And that unhappiness was damaging their health, their mental health. A lot of my colleagues weren't finding the career fulfilling or rewarding and finding it too hard. And I could relate to that. I mean, I had depression and on many times I questioned why did I do this career and why did they end up IRM
We turn into a long gravel driveway and we pull up outside of more stable.
I'm not going to click All right, well. I'm here. I'm chatting I'm talking to away. How are you going? Alright.
Warwick's patients include racehorses, breeding horses, performance horses, and pet horses at pony clubs. His first for today is an eventing horse and her owner is champion show jumpers, Steph Tucker,
How's she walking today. I haven't brought her up yet. But she's not hobbling not was not hobbling like she was...
This is Oaks Xena. So she's a 18 year old Warm blood. She's a World Cup pause, but we're just doing Grand Prix with her now because she's a little bit older, but she's still
Dr. Valephpe has been stepped back for years. And it's a relationship she describes as vital to her success in her sport.
He ruins everything really, he keeps my horses sound, he helps with their maintenance, which is so important when I'm competing and show jumping.
Right, there we go, I've got a little bit of pass out of that corn area, I've dissected it out nicely enough.
And the feeling is mutual. It's the relationships Warwick says that he's built with his clients over his career that have been one of the highlights.
All right, I'll see you on Saturday morning.
So it's a really big part of why I still enjoy doing this because I like people, and I like dealing with them. And I was lucky because you know, my dad was a vet. So I'd worked in his small animal practice before I graduated. So I had a good understanding of what the dynamic was like that it was, you know, almost fixing the horse is not as important as fixing the client in inverted commas, you know that you've got to cater to both. In fact, you can do a fabulous job on the horse, or the patient and think, Well, that's quality work quality, diagnosis, quality, treatment, quality outcome. But if the client wasn't on board with the journey, or doesn't feel that that is the same result through usually through communication, then you won't be back again. And you'll think, what did I do wrong? At the end of the day, if the outcome is good for the horse and the client, then I don't care really what it takes, you know how much humble pie that I have to eat, or whether I'm right and they're wrong, or their perception of what I've done is is incorrect. It really doesn't matter. At the end of the day, that's all the human dynamics, people are emotional, people are worried people are thinking, why is my horse broken? How much is gonna cost? And what's my husband gonna say? And my daughter's gonna cry? Because it pony can't be written on the weekend. And there's all this other stuff that's happening in people's lives that has bets that we often don't see. And if we do, it's not always you don't always put it into the context of what am I here to do today?
After 34 years, Warwick Vale says he still loves his job. But he also knows there's a lot of work to do before every vet feels the same way.
It is real challenging. But if we make it simple, I think we'll get there. And the simple thing is that we need to actually change the conversation now around what's so bad about the profession, and what's so difficult and what's so challenging and start to talk more about how much fun it can be and how rewarding it can be. Yeah,
Under his watch as president, the AVA launched THRIVE. It's an industry led wellness programme that, as the website explains, supports vets and vet staff to prevent harm, promote the positives of vet work, and protect anyone in crisis.
I envisage something that's just a little bit more practical and perhaps a little bit more protective rather than, than treating on the treatment focus where we're, you're in, you're depressed, or you're stressed, or you're, you're you've got anxiety, well, let's treat you I'd like to sort of prevent that from happening in the first place.
Dr. Valle is frank about what else needs to change. And he says that lies with individual clinics and how they're managed.
I've never seen vetinary as much different from the fast food industry business. That's because I sell advice and X rays and drugs and procedures in red restaurants, or chips and chickens, and rolls and burgers. And it's no different. They want the quality to be right, they want the service to be right. And they want the price to be right. There's not much emotion though, in buying a burger. Some people might get emotional about buying a burger that wasn't hot enough or cold enough. And there's no life and death in the fast food industry. But it is intrinsically in a business model identical. And so managing your staff is about having a good team.
Vet salaries for one he says need to be higher, not least considering the debt students graduate with fair practice business models need an overhaul. And no vet should be working 12 hour days beyond call and then back at work the next day, that staff should have a work life balance and be supported, particularly when it comes to abuse of clients. And like it or not for you and I there's another shift that Warwick Vale is clear needs to happen.
I think a couple of things that needs to change is that the clients need to be charged more. There's no doubt in my mind about that in in some in some practices that that needs to change that we need to be upskilling our non veterinary staff so our technical staff a lot more and leveraging their role in the practice more than one and that would require some regulatory changes. It will take some of the workload off that's I think that's need to stop doing what they are doing that doesn't have to be done by bid, so a whole lot of paperwork. So that needs to change. I think the profession has done very well at that in training, and many practices now have great managers and now we're accommodating the training of those managers and, and upskilling, but there's still we got a long way to go.
Now no one wants to pay more for something than they have to. But if Warwick fails, right, increasing prices may be one of the few levers left for vets to pull to keep their businesses viable staff in a job and us with animal doctors to go to.
So if prices rise, what options does that leave you and me and pet owners who can't afford to pay? I'll return to Harvey our miniature Groodle for a moment. Earlier in the series, you'll remember we found out that he'd needs surgery on his back left knee for a ruptured cranial cruciate ligament, that's going to set us back $6,000. And no, we don't have pet insurance, the operation will substantially improve his quality of life. And so we've chosen to go ahead. But what if it was a life threatening injury, or we couldn't afford it? What does it mean for pet owners in those situations? Let's take a look at some of the options. The most extreme is to rehome or surrender a pet to an animal welfare organisation. That's a really hard decision to make regardless, and that might not always be possible. For example, in South Australia for the first time since opening in 1979, the RSPCA is Lonsdale shelter in the city south has been forced to turn back people wanting to give up their animals. And that's because there's been an unprecedented number that have been surrendered to the shelter in the past 12 months, and dads pushed capacity staff and volunteers to the brink. Depending where you live, there are charities and organisations like pet medical crisis in Victoria, that raise money to help with that bills for companion pets in that state. Some vets will put clients on a payment plan to meet the bill if the person can't afford it. And there's also pet insurance which Dr. Warrick Vale is a fan of.
My view is is that we should be pushing the concept of it as a risk mitigation, not a particular product. But we should be very upbeat and very proactive and very encouraging around the concept of having it as a cost mitigation tool. I think it's essential.
The take up of pet insurance in Australia has traditionally been low. The figures are a bit rubbery at best and hard to nail down. But a few years back, it was 6% According to Roy Morgan, but more recently choice put it at around 16%. It's one buffer against unexpected vet bills. But the kind of pet the breed and coverage options available will all dictate if it's worthwhile for you. There are more underwriters than previously but the premiums can be anywhere from a few $100 up to $4,500 per year. So it can be really expensive. We chose not to get pet insurance for Harvey, but I have plenty of friends who do and say they wouldn't be without it. These are some of the ways that pet owners can take back a bit of the control and counter bill shock before it bites. And while we the animal lovers do what we can, the vet profession will continue to do what it can.
The more he walks around the better. The worst thing you can do now is lock him up in a small yard or a good girl
As we finish the rounds of his horse patients across Perth northeast. Dr. Warwick Val reminds me that's provide a service a really valuable and vital service. And it has to come at a cost but not a personal one.
And that's what I'm determined to at least try through AVA's Thrive programme is to bring everyone together, show that leadership role, get the right thought leaders together again and continue to keep them together on creative, innovative solutions to what is a really complex, difficult problem. But the thing that I think I'm going to have to tell people that I've come around to is that each person needs to take their own personal responsibility for looking after each other in the profession and in our workplaces. And take individual responsibility for their own mental health and work on it and own it and get help. The resources will be there but we're gonna have to do this ourselves no amount of government funding if we ever get any in suicide prevention or hex forgiveness for students when they graduate if they work in regional areas, no amount of that is probably going to have the magic medicine that that they Our profession leads to permanent happiness in the future and no mental health problems and noses. It's going to take some personal ownership and, and to me that's about telling our stories and telling the good stories. And then when there are bad stories and bad things have happened that we just have the safety net and people have the tools within and from outside to deal with it.
Next time on Sick As A Dog. Back to the beginning,
Everyone has such high expectations of themselves. I didn't realise that I was going to struggle with mental health during the degree. I thought that that was a problem for later, Claire, when I graduated,
is the pressure and stress of vet school where it starts,
More and more students were seeking assistance from a social psychologist or from a counsellor and that then became a regular kind of feature of going into a veterinary programme that that was expected to be there
and making changes one step at a time.
Students can change universities and change the world if they want to. All you've got to do is grab it by the scruff of the neck and shake the shit out of it.
Sick As A Dog is written, produced, edited and presented by me Caroline Winter for PodTalk on the lands of the Kaurna people and additional support from Drew Radford. You can support this podcast by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts, share it with others or post about it on social media. And you can find out more online at sickasadogpodcast.com.au
