Atiu Vet Trek 2011 (Part II)

Day 3- Improvising a Theme

Operating a veterinary surgery on a veranda poses certain challenges not normally encountered in western practice.

For starters, there’s no walls or cages so you always have to keep half an eye on your patients to make sure they aren’t disappearing off into the bushes. There’s no sink or tap, so our water for cleaning and scrubbing comes from a giant barrel strategically positioned under a crack in the guttering where it gets filled whenever it rains.

Operating on a picnic table, two bottles of intravenous fluids are used to form a rudimentary cradle to hold patients on their backs. A long extension cord thankfully provides us with power for our clippers (negated the need for old school shaving razors) and mixing some standard dishwashing detergent with betadine creates a passable scrub solution. To overcome a distinct lack of lighting, the trusty headtorch is on standby to illuminate the surgical field if needed.

Now, ready for action, we encounter one more problem- we have three sterile kits of instruments for triple that number of operations. So a system is improvised whereby at any one time one kit is in use, one is being cleaned and one is soaking in surgical spirits in preparation for the next patient.

In this manner we desexed another nine animals today (three female dogs, five male dogs and one male cat) before returning to our accommodation. Then, like all normal Atiu tourists, we spend a couple of hours re-wrapping the surgical kits and sterilising them in an old pressure cooker on the gas stove in the kitchen. Much to the amusement of our visiting Austrian housemate.


Day 4-A Kind Example

As a not-for-profit organisation the Esther Honey Foundation depends upon charitable donations to function. Vet-treks to the outer islands like Atiu are particularly dependant upon the goodwill and support of the local community. Participating in these treks is a humbling experience- to be the beneficiary of so much generosity- it makes you re-evaluate you own standards of behaviour.

The kindness and support has come in many forms. Obviously our flights (which were discounted) and our accommodation (donated for free) are the biggest examples, but it’s the small things that have really made the difference.

There’s the people who give us lifts wherever we need to go, and our neighbours at the veterinary veranda who boil us water whenever it’s time for a coffee break. There’s the school teacher who launders our drapes and towels each evening and returns them in the morning, and the locals who donated fruit and donuts for us to snack on. There’s the local store owner who sponsored our dinner one night, and our contact Maara who lets us use his internet when needed.

With a population that is mostly children and grandparents, where most are subsistence farmers or on a minimal wage, it is not surprising that cash donations have been limited. But then it’s smiles and the thanks we get each time an animal goes that are the truest indicator of how our work is appreciated.

With our surgical total now at twenty-four (nine dog speys, ten dog castrates, two cat speys and three cat castrates) we are hoping for one last productive day of work tomorrow to repay all the hospitality we have received to date.