Casey speaks about the shortage of vet care in our region.

By Randi-Marie Adams

Major shortages in the Veterinary clinics across B.C.

Feb 17, 2021 | 3:34 PM

Prince George – Over the last few years, The shortage of Vets across Canada has become a major issue, these challenges are especially felt here in our region.

The Pandemic has created a major backlog when it comes to access veterinary care, this has been an issue long before the pandemic began.

As B.C. has had a shortage of vet care for many years. Casey Bockus is the service manager with the Prince George Animal Hospital says he has been with the hospital since 1999 and it was even an issue then.

” In Prince George, we always struggle to get veterinarians here and to keep them within the city as well. We just find that there are not enough resources to get people from Prince George into veterinary school and then get them back into Prince George afterward.”

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Care workers say they are under immense pressure right now as the province’s ongoing shortage has only been magnified by covid-19. Not only with limitation to services but also, the mental health of caregivers.

” The profession of veterinary medicine has had a high impact of burnout and suicide rate and its something that we have struggled with for years and then throwing a pandemic on top of that where we can’t our normal time away for the doctors and support staff to decompress, its had a huge impact on our services here.”

The Canadian Veterinary Medical Association says there are only about 10,000 veterinarians nationwide, Dr. Enid Stiles, who is the President of CVMA says they worked a study to better understand the situation and found some of the greatest downfalls in major areas including B.C.

” We just want to reiterate that it’s not just vets that are feeling this shortage, it is also all support staff and certainly vet technicians we really are having a serious shortage of that across Canada and our main areas where we have seen the biggest shortage is as you mentioned, we were seeing a big shortage in BC, Newfound land and Quebec.

Bockus, says vets are booking 6 to 8 weeks in advance, where pre covid it was only a few days, he says more needs to be done

“Every Province has their own governing board and so we the college of veterinarians of B.C.., which is our governing and I think that reaching out to them and providing them with the concerns that are going on up in the North, that it is something that honestly the community of Prince George could have a huge impact in doing.”

Bockus says you can even reach out to the local MLA’s and express your concerns.