Dr. Dan goes to Chile

Dr. Dan's Chile Experience

From May 1 thru May 9th, I had the opportunity to spend time with the Chilean Vet group called, SACH (Soccoro Animale Chile). The Sach group was started a few months before my deployment to help people with-out any money care for their pets. The Sach group is firmly committed to helping the pets and especially stray dogs that have suffered from the recent earthquake tragedy.  The SACH VETS are eager to learn and enthusiastic about helping victims of tragedy, poverty, and ignorance – committed to helping both 2 and 4 legged victims. Their crusade relies totally on donations of medical supplies, money, and time from 20 dedicated veterinarians in Santiago and Concepcion Chile.

I traveled with a group of experienced rescue workers from representing(www.kinshipcircle.org), an international animal rescue group, from all over the USA and Canada, dedicated to helping animal victims of disasters. Our mission was to assist the Chilean SACH group in their preventative parasite program and free veterinary medical clinics in several local towns and tent communities.  We were deployed to work with the SACH vets and help wherever possible with their activities along the southern Chile coast.  Two Kinship groups preceded us and we were the first group to have two USA licensed veterinarians in our deployment group, DR. Madi Graham and myself, Dr Dan Meakin. I worked side by side with about 10 Chilean vets.  All are very nice people, and they only marry and date other vets, I guess that's an international concept?

 Along the Pacific coast north and south of the city of Concepcion, the recent tsunami and 8.8 earthquakes had devastated the communities near the epicenter along the south Pacific Coast of Chile.  The small town residents had no money for any vet care before the tragedy and even less after the tragedy.   Since food was scarce for the people living in these communities, pets were in danger of being relinquished, malnourished, or starved to death due to the fact that residents could not afford dog food to feed them.  During the immediate time of the February tragedy, many dogs had been abandoned when the residents deserted their destroyed homes when moving into temporarily housing or transferring to another city to live with a friend or relative.  Government assistance was surprisingly available, but at a minimal subsistence level for the Chilean people. Despite being rather progressive in Chile in some ways, no apparent animal control programs or government animal shelters exist. There are no leash laws and no licensing of animals.  Even though TVT (transmissible Venereal Tumor), runs rampant and the last thing Chile needs is more puppies or kittens, very, very few people spay or neuter their dogs and cats.  I had never seen firsthand the terrible consequences of TVT (transmissible venereal tumors) in dogs.  Unfortunately, no treatment was available locally or from us due to our scarce resources. We spayed 20 dogs at our spay clinic on one day. They practiced an alternative technique for the ovariohysterectomy (spay), approaching from the side.   I will be practicing the technique for strays, but I don't plan to offer it as an alternative at All Creatures at this time.   

In Chile we observed first hand canine territory wars on every corner, strays frequently running down the highways, and feral dogs feeding in trash piles and begging outside every restaurant or food vendor.  It’s a way of life for animals in Chile to run loose and no one thinks spay or neuter is an important option for their dogs and cats. As a result of this, the country of Chile has an overabundance of domesticated dogs and cats living freely in the streets and towns.  In Chile, the dogs live almost 100% outside.  But surprisingly, this is not to say that every wandering dog has no owner.  Surprisingly, most of them have real owners that do actually love them.  However, the owners don’t care what hours their pets keep, who they hang out with, or what they can bring home to infect the family. The economic stress of the country and the endemic culture has people both conditioned and unable to utilize established veterinary practices and clinics.  The Cliché, “I can’t afford to take him to a vet” is the same vernacular that we sometimes hear in the states, but in Chile it is compounded by a factor of 100.

My observations of the experience level and commitment of the veterinary “volunteers” in the SACH group was overall very impressive.   It was truly apparent from living and speaking with the veterinarians of this organization, that this is a unique group of professionals with a strong commitment to help forgotten animals in this country and attempt to make dents in the stray animal population by establishing a free Spay/ Neuter clinic. In general, graduated Veterinarians in Chile are mostly out of work and under paid.

My “accommodations” were sharing a small apartment with as many as 8 Chilean vets, 5 other Kinship Circle Volunteers, 2 -3 dogs, and 3 cats.  We slept on the floor on air mattresses covering every inch of the small three room apartment. Since we were not in the apartment much at all, it didn’t matter that we only had one bathroom, and one sink.  While talking one night, we experienced one earthquake, a 6.5 level one termor, fortunately nothing was damaged in our area.

Besides working in the field, I visited 2 vet schools when in Chile.  I was able to assist in a few surgeries and speak to the hospital clinicians about my cases and practices in the states.  They invited me back to speak to senior students on another day, but I felt it was more important to be in the field helping to triage animals that day.

 Everyone I met was very interested in learning and sharing knowledge. The schools are nice but not busy, like All Creatures.  I found it difficult to move at the typical slower South American pace.   All greetings are with a kiss between males and females and females and females, and all men great with handshake or a hug.  Overall Chile is a very affectionate country, but with strong Christian heritage and family oriented culture.  Nothing was opened except gas stations on Sundays, and midday had a 2 hour siesta.  Meals are spread out more and most dinners were about 10-11pm, which suited my lifestyle perfectly.  

On offsite clinic days we treated 150-250 animals belonging to tsunami victims in very poor areas.  One highlight was when I sutured a colo-rectal prolapse in the field with 20 Chileans watching me and laughing in Spanish. At the clinics we had no electric, no gas anesthetic, no latex gloves, only minimal resources, but we also had no records, no billing and no unhappy clients to worry about.  Overall the people of Chile were very proud and very appreciative of our efforts.  After completing the anal prolapse surgery on a small dog in the field, the owner kept returning to me to shake my hand and thank me over and over. On another occasion a large aggressive German shepherd had his tail crushed from a rock and it would not stop bleeding.  With my team, we sedated him and on the floor of the fire department, removed the damaged tip of his tail and sutured it closed.  The owner gave me a bottle of wine to show his appreciation.

On some aspects, Chile is very much like the USA.  Most people have cell phones and internet.  Surprisingly, costs are equal and higher than the USA on common things, like fast food.  In the town of Concepcion, the main mall was packed with teenagers and young adults – all texting and in nice clothing.  Food and especially fast food, KFC, Pizza Hut, is available and not any cheaper than anywhere else in the USA, maybe higher. Veterinary Clinics seem to abound in the larger cities, (Conception, Santiago).   On another hand, there seems to be poverty on every level and people that struggle to feed themselves and a government that cant afford to provide resources to the victims of its frequent natural disasters.

With 31 veterinary schools in Chile, there seems to be an over abundance of veterinarians in the country.  Many veterinarians are unemployed and working in other areas of work or business, in order to afford to feed their families.   Paying clinics have few clients and a very slow schedule.  Veterinarians with clinics do everything in their hospitals, including selling dog food, grooming and bathing dogs, cleaning kennels, and they answer all phone calls.  For this reason, graduated vets like the ones I worked with are not that intent on trying to open their own clinics or get a job as an associate at a hospital.  Wages for veterinarians are less than most kennel workers at All Creatures, which hardly seems fair considering their level of commitment and training.

The SACH organization although evolving was overall organized but lacking the funding and supplies needed to maintain its effectiveness.  The group needed a nonprofit plan, and is missing some limbs that it's organizational tree  needs if they are to grow and continue providing animal care.  My plan to help the Sach organization is to offer some recommendations and division of duty to perhaps help accelerate their achievement of their goals and increase the level of their effectiveness in Chile.