Vet Vibes: In the aftermath

VET VIBES

In the aftermath

Dr Oliver Liyou spoke to AMANDA MAC about coordinating the emergency response to horses injured during the recent NSW floods.

On 28th February, the Northern Rivers of NSW experienced catastrophic flooding. The human impact of that event and the devastation left in its wake is beyond comprehension. Many people lost everything – their homes, their businesses, and heartbreakingly, some lost their lives.

Who can forget images of locals in an armada of tinnies, canoes and kayaks, making endless trips along Lismore’s flooded streets to rescue people clinging to their rooves, often with family pets by their side.

For the region’s livestock, the situation was every bit as dire. Many hundreds of cattle and horses were either drowned, trapped in flooded paddocks, or had suffered horrific injuries. Some are still unaccounted for.

The way people pull together in times of crisis is always profoundly moving, and the work done by a team of veterinarians who voluntarily stepped into the mayhem determined to do all they could to ease suffering and save lives, is nothing short of inspiring.

Based in Grafton, some kilometres south of Lismore, a concerned Dr Oliver Liyou of Equine Veterinary and Dental Services (EVDS) was trying to establish the severity of the problem for horse owners in the flooded region. “I was liaising with our local Land Services vet who unfortunately, because their 1800 help hotline wasn’t busy, thought there wasn’t much of an issue,” he tells me. “It turned out that the 1800 number either wasn’t well-known, or was on a fridge magnet attached to a fridge that by then was floating out to sea, or that phones were down – whatever the reason, it was a big fail.”

Fortunately, Dr Oliver was also in touch with Lismore vet Dr Bruno Ross. Bruno, along with Vet Vibes’ Dr Doug English, who had driven down from Queensland to assist, was well aware of the immensity of the problem. Along with several other large animal vets working out of Primex in nearby Casino, they were treating horses with multiple lacerations and, in Dr Doug’s words, “chests full of dirty mud.” Horses were dying and the situation couldn’t have been more serious.

Now with insight into the extent of the disaster, Dr Oliver set up a virtual meeting, inviting vets he’d noticed offering their services on Facebook to participate. “I could see things were really disjointed, to the point where I heard of three vets scrambling to get to the same horse – and when I say scrambling, they were trying to get there by boat, chopper, whatever. So I thought this is crazy, this needs to be coordinated.”

Besides Doctors Oliver, Bruno and Doug, the initial vet rescue team included Nikita Stibbard, Megan Kearney, Pip Bacon, Lu Fenny and Joe Weir, but their ranks quickly swelled. “Sally Armstrong, a vet from South Africa holidaying in Tasmania at the time,

arrived with a chopper funded by her husband. So she and Nikita got around in the chopper doing whatever they could to help,” Dr Oliver recalls.

And then the supplies rolled in. “Randlab was probably one of the biggest,” he tells me. “They asked what we needed and just sent it. Provet supplied bags of fluids and stock to vets all over the area. Zoetis provided a vet and our blood systems, Kelato sent us a heap of product, Pullen’s Produce offered a pallet of horse feed, Bernie's Produce up on the Gold Coast sent a truckload of shavings – the list just goes on and on.”

It was the open-heartedness of the support that gave Dr Oliver the confidence to turn the EVDS stables and paddocks into a treatment centre. “EVDS is not an equine hospital, I’ve never worked in an equine hospital, and a lot of the volunteer vets are general practitioners, so we were out of our depth with these really sick horses. But I knew I had the contacts to help me,” he says.

And guidance came quickly. Dr Rosemary Cuming, an equine medicine specialist from Scone Equine Hospital, stepped up and organised a webinar with the by then close to 30-strong vet rescue team to review the cases and offer advice. “She’s given us ongoing support, to the point where she’s taught quite a few of us techniques like placing chest drains. Steve Zedler and Alison Stewart from the University of Queensland Specialist Equine Hospital also reached out and have been very generous and helpful.”

Other than treating chest infections, gashed legs and other wounds, Dr Oliver believes the potential for hoof problems is immense. “There's going to be a lot of waterlogged abscesses, seedy toe, thrush, and greasy heal,” he says.

But there’s another issue. “A lot of owners might think their flood affected horses are just a bit sad or missing their mates, when they’re probably harbouring some pretty nasty stuff. It blew my mind

FACING PAGE: Dr Oliver Liyou and star patient Ollie. TOP: Dr Oliver brings volunteer vets, nurses, and handlers up to date during a daily hospital round. BOTTOM: Scone Equine’s Dr Rosemary Cuming gives Dr Oliver an ultrasound tutorial via FaceTime. All images courtesy of Equine Veterinary and Dental Services.

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ABOVE: Many horses have sustained severe lacerations to their legs and bodies.

how well Ollie, one of our patients, was hiding his pleuropneumonia. He had normal temperature and respiration, was alert and eating. And then one of the vets suggested scanning his chest. All his vital signs were normal, but he had roaring pleuropneumonia.” Although Ollie is facing serious health challenges, at the time of writing he’d just delighted the EVDS team by gaining a healthy 20 kilograms.

As I talk to Dr Oliver, it quickly becomes clear that there are some important lessons we can all learn from this disaster, and they’re certainly worth mentioning here. Firstly, disillusioned, depressed and unfairly treated, equine vets are leaving the profession at an alarming rate. Much of this can be slated to bullying through social media, with accusations that vets are only in it for the money a common thread.

However, if this were true why would so many vets respond to the flood crisis, giving freely of their expertise and countless hours of their time? As Dr Warwick Vale, President of the Australian Veterinary Association, recently commented: “People need to work with us and not against us. We need support, understanding, a lot less abuse, and a little bit more empathy.” Something worth thinking about if we value having a vet to call on in times of need.

Secondly, no one knows how many horses were affected by the flood. There are still dozens missing, and this, Dr Oliver says, is a tragedy that highlights the need for a national horse registry. “Think about the horses that washed up along the beaches. If they’d been micro-chipped and registered, someone could have scanned them and at least been able to get back to their owners to give them some closure.”

Dr Oliver believes that addressing this problem is the responsibility of everyone from horse owners to politicians. “To protect the sustainability of the equine industry there needs to be a coordinated plan to deal with natural disasters and exotic disease outbreaks. We should be leading the world here in Australia. We've got a massive horse population, we’re a wealthy nation, and we've got the opportunity to build the best system in the world. Not to have a national registry is a failure of planning on the part of the industry.”

Ultimately, taking positive action to remedy these issues is vital to the wellbeing of the horses we love – and the vets to whom we owe an immense debt of gratitude.