Veterinarians are leaving South Africa en masse, the resulting critical shortage creating vacancies in clinics, especially in rural areas, and with those professionals remaining running the risk of burnout and depression, GroundUp reports.
About 100 vets leave the country every year to work overseas, when only about 140 qualify annually, show recent figures by the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform & Rural Development (DALRRD). Paul van der Merwe, president of the SA Veterinary Association (SAVA), said the crisis was particularly felt in rural areas, where there was often a lack of equipment or medicines, and where clinics frequently close down.
About 40% of the 455 state vet positions were vacant in 2023, according to an answer given in Parliament by the Minister of Agriculture. This is worse than the 35% vacancy rate in 2019. (The numbers in the parliamentary answer should be treated with caution because some don’t add up.)
The situation is most serious in Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.
South Africa has just under 4 000 registered vets, of whom about 230 are specialists, which comes to just more than 60 vets per million people. The international standard, said the South African Veterinary Council, was between 200 and 400 vets per million people.
Even counting every student vet and other people registered with the Council, the total is still just more that 100 per million people, far short of the international standard.
A rural vet from KwaZulu-Natal, Tod Collins, who has been practising for about 50 years, described being a rural vet as tough and “physically demanding”, particularly because vets are mostly dealing with large animals, which can be exhausting. “And we are working in the elements; snow, rain, hail, dust, sun, which takes a lot out of us,” he said.
The job also takes a toll on mental well-being, he added, and depression, anxiety and burnout are some of the reasons vets leave the profession.
Particularly referring to rural vets, Collins said that farmers and their families come to “rely on us an awful amount”.
“When we come up against a brick wall, or some strange conditions, or a series of circumstances lead us to fail, we take it personally.”
The “ruthlessness” of livestock farming, the danger of the work, the lack of facilities, compassion fatigue, and financial unpreparedness all take a toll on their mental health. “Vets generally become vets because they are sensitive people,” said Collins, with many, in their first few years, not expecting to have to put down so many animals.
Van der Merwe said that a survey by SAVA to provide the Department of Home Affairs with statistics – after the department removed veterinarians from the SA critical skills list – showed it can take some practices up to two years to find someone to employ. The gazetted critical skills list names 142 skills in demand in the country. The department has since reinstated vets to the list.
On 23 July, Dipepeneneng Serage, deputy director-general of Agricultural Production, Biosecurity and Natural Resources Management in the Department of Agriculture, told Parliament that rural areas were under-resourced, lacked the facilities to support veterinary work, and that rural vets were underpaid.
There are several reasons for the shortage of vets, said Van der Merwe. They are often very badly renumerated. After finishing their studies, they walk out of the University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Veterinary Science in Onderstepoort with massive debt and don’t make enough to cover their expenses.
He said there was talk about establishing a second faculty, as Onderstepoort is the only veterinary faculty in SA, but this is a “long-term strategy” which will probably only take in its first students in 10 or 15 years’ time.
After their final year, when vets do their compulsory community service, some end up in rural areas with basic facilities, with limited or no access to medicine or equipment.
“The experience of veterinary service within the first year after they qualify is horrific,” said Van der Merwe, and expectations from clients remain the same, despite the worsening shortage of qualified professionals.
The Department of Agriculture did not respond to GroundUp’s questions.
GroundUp article – Vets are leaving South Africa in droves (Creative Commons Licence)
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