A PETty talk: lack of adequate vets in India
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” — Anatole France
I have a dream that one day, I’ll wake up to my dog licking me all over my face just to get me out of the bed. That he pulls me out of the house so that we can take a long stroll down Victoria, and sit down the lake and contemplate life. That he run and jump on me as I come back after a long, rough day at the office to make me realize how much he missed me. And then we cuddle and cuddle and sleep, only to find him next to me the subsequent morning I wake up. I’ll pour my heart out to him, and I know he’ll return the most unadulterated form of love existing in this world. The only problem is that I’m afraid of having a pet. Why you ask? Because I’m frightened by the fact that in case he falls ill, I won’t have a reliable vet to take him to, at least not in my city/country.
As of 2016, it is estimated that more than 1.6 crore pets have found their homes in Indian households. With the increasing knowledge about the need to pet an animal, and the advantages of having one, Indians are becoming more receptive towards animals than ever before. The majority of these pets constitute of dogs as they are found to be more suitable household companions than any other domestic animal, however, it’s not hard to find cats and fishes around your neighbourhood. It is no surprise that with all the increasing graph of pet owners, a relatively new pet industry has boomed to heights never seen before. The Indian pet market is now a Rs. 5000 crore industry, and is consistently growing in double digits year on year. However, for these over 1 crore pets lurking around the country, there are merely just a little over 67,000 registered doctors specializing in veterinary. What this means is that for 240 pets that you come across in India, there’s only 1 doctor available for treatment. And this statistic doesn’t even count the stray, wild animals and cattle that this agro-dominant country has. As of 2015, the estimated number of cattle in India was well over 30 crores, the stray dogs count is well over 3 crores, and it’s no hidden fact that India is a mega diversity nation with a lot of conservation centres around the country. So, if we add all these numbers, you can see where the huge problem in the number of vets in India lies.
In this context, I have a story of my friend to tell to you guys. An out and out pet lover and pet enthusiast, Aman a little over a year ago, brought home a Flowerhorn cichlid to beautify his aquarium. For those not in the know, a flowerhorn is an ornamental fish with bright and beautiful colours and a distinctively shaped head. A fun loving and active fish, the little guy would literally dance in happiness when he saw Aman around the aquarium. The dance didn’t last long as 5–6 months down the road, the fish was diagnosed with Hexamita — a parasitic disease in which the head develops a hole and starts eroding. However, the main problem was that the disease was not detected earlier primarily because of lack of vets specializing in aquatic animals around Kolkata. Aman had to resort to YouTube and Google to look for the disease based on the symptoms that the fish started showing — white spots over the body, loss of appetite, white faeces among others. On the detection of the disease based on symptoms, proper medicine was hard to be found in the medical stores around the city. The poor little fish succumbed to death 4 months after fighting death every day — a superhero I would say. However, this incident left a huge mark on Aman. The guy who once dreamed of having a mini zoo in the house with lots of animals around, today says he does not want a pet ever in his life again. “It’s hard. The pain that his passing away caused me, it’s hard to bear it once again. I’m done with pets.” And the pain was not because his fish passed away, the pain grew on him because he could not provide the required treatment to his fish even after keeping it in the best environment possible.
Hence, lack of vets is a glaring problem here in India that not many people talk about. It also does not help that in the medical line, vets are looked down upon. Statistics show that most of the vet students are there because of low scores in entrance exams that forced them into the vet line. This is unfortunate. For, a vet needs to have passion and love for animals to be their doctor. You can’t treat an animal right if you don’t love it. We need more doctors and caretakers for those treasures of love. Let’s try to spread the word, and encourage the aspirants of this beautiful line of profession. And for the current practicing and the retired vets, I send them luck, wishes and thank them for their efforts towards betterment of our animals. :)
