Mills takes over as NZVA president
Taranaki veterinarian Dr Rob Mills is the new president of New Zealand Veterinary Association (NZVA).
The Government is being urged to elevate veterinarians to critical worker status to help ease an acute shortage.
In a scathing media release last week, the NZ Vet Association (NZVA) accused the Government of double standards while granting emergency work visas.
“We’re led to the conclusion that veterinarians are just not viewed as important, or as sexy as other parts of the economy such as film making, which have seen wholesale exemptions created,” says NZVA chief executive Kevin Bryant.
“This is surprising given veterinarians’ essential worker status during lockdown.
“We also understand that exemptions have been granted to build golf courses, build or repair racetracks, and for shearers.
“Surely veterinarians are at least as important in supporting the economic functioning of the country.”
Bryant says if animal welfare, food safety and biosecurity are compromised because there are insufficient vets to support the primary sector, the economic impact on New Zealand would be catastrophic.
A survey of NZVA members found that out of 124 practices there was a shortfall of 224 veterinarians. Most respondents were seeking veterinarians on a full-time, permanent basis.
Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi told Dairy News that the issue concerning veterinarians has been raised with him by Federated Farmers and the matter is being looked at the moment.
He didn’t have a specific time-frame, at this stage, on when a solution might be reached.
Faafoi says work is happening across various sectors which are calling for workers, whom they deem to be critical, to be allowed into New Zealand.
The Minister said that while the Government looks to address the issues around critical workers’ entry, it needs to balance that against maintaining careful border controls and managed isolation to ensure any spread of Covid-19 is limited and does not force a return to lockdown.
NZVA chief veterinary officer Helen Beattie warns that repercussions of vet shortages are far-reaching and, in many cases, have long-term consequences, including poor veterinary mental health and well-being, burn-out and veterinarians leaving the profession.
The NZVA says it has been talking to ministers and officials in an effort to help streamline processes to enable veterinarians to enter the country and alleviate the critical veterinary shortage exacerbated by border restrictions imposed due to Covid-19. So far this doesn’t seem to have worked, with more applications being declined each day, despite laborious hours spent submitting applications.
“We are calling on the Government to take urgent steps to alleviate this situation by elevating veterinarians to critical worker status and streamlining and speeding up the application and approval process.”
A US-based company developing a vaccine to reduce methane emissions in cattle has received another capital injection from New Zealand’s agriculture sector.
Wools of New Zealand has signed a partnership agreement with a leading Chinese manufacturer as the company looks to further grow demand in China and globally.
Opportunities for Māori are there for the taking if they scale up their operations and work more closely together.
OPINION: Farmer shareholders of two of New Zealand's largest co-operatives have an important decision to make this month and what they decide could change the landscape of the dairy and meat sectors in New Zealand.
As the first of a new series of interprofessional rural training hubs opened in South Taranaki late September, Rural Health Network has celebrated the move as a "key pathway to encourage the growth and retention of health professionals in rural areas".
OPINION: Dairy industry players are also falling by the wayside as the economic downturn bites around the country.
OPINION: Methane Science Accord, a farmer-led organisation advocating for zero tax on ruminant methane, will be quietly celebrating its first…