When disaster strikes, we jump into action to provide vital veterinary aid for animals and their communities. This includes the provision of urgent veterinary supplies and medication to charities and NGOs who are caring for animals, as well as deploying volunteers to where they are needed most. In July 2024, Hurricane Beryl, a deadly category 5 storm, left a trail of destruction across parts of the Caribbean causing devastation for millions of people and animals. Emergency aid shipments were dispatched to partnering charities impacted by the storm to help support their crucial work on the islands. WVS volunteer, Dr Ian Patterson, travelled to the islands to aid the team at Carriacou Animal Hospital following the loss of their clinic:
"The sheer scale of damage caused by Hurricane Beryl was obvious as our boat approached Tyrell Bay harbour in Carriacou. I was contacted by WVS in early July and informed that Carriacou Animal Hospital, the only source of veterinary care on the island, had lost its clinic and that they required urgent veterinary assistance."
"For obvious reasons after a natural disaster such as this the immediate focus is predominantly on humanitarian efforts to provide food, shelter, fresh water and medical aid to the thousands of islanders in danger. I arrived at a point when the situation for the population of the island was a little more stable, albeit far from normal. There was no electricity and fresh water was only available at certain points where desalination plants had been set up by international humanitarian organisations. Some of the roads were still impassable and a large number of the islanders’ vehicles had been destroyed. With this backdrop I sat down with clinic founder Kathy Nowell and clinic veterinarian Nadine Cerny to come up with a plan going forwards to provide essential veterinary care to Carriacou’s pet population in a sustainable manner.
The most important consideration was the complete lack of clinic premises and hospitalisation facilities, all of which had been rendered out of action. Islanders had for many years become used to coming along to Carriacou Animal Hospital on Airport Road for consultations and surgeries, many of which are provided free of charge for the local population. This has been a vital service that Kathy and Nadine have built up and one on which many of the 6,000 plus population have become to rely heavily on for making sure their pets remain in good health. How can an animal hospital function without an animal hospital? The answer in the short term was to find a way to take the services usually provided out into the communities of Carriacou and so bring the hospital to them.
Veterinary nurse volunteer Beth Cavill RVN and I spent around 10 days going out into the communities with a small jeep packed with medical supplies and food donations and worked together to find a system that was sustainable and could be easily adopted by new volunteers in the coming weeks and months. This outreach work predominantly involved providing people with preventative medicine for their pets. There were also many ill or injured pets that needed treatment, some of whose owners had contacted the clinic, but some we only came across simply by moving from house to house."
Luna, a seven old month puppy, sustained a fractured femur after being struck by a car outside her house.
"Later in my three-week stay, with the arrival of an additional two vets Amy and Vici, we managed to get the hospital’s weekly neutering days back up and running, again using an outreach model. After travelling into the community, we would bring several dogs or cats back to clinic for neutering surgery and then return them again at the end of the day. This was quite a labour intensive (and very hot!) way of working but in the current situation it was the only way to keep on top of the dog and cat populations and prevent a potential boom in numbers in future months."
Tiger, a lovely large bull terrier cross, was given treatment for a severe neck wound.
"Union Island (part of St Vincent and the Grenadines) was equally badly hit by Hurricane Beryl and had not been reached by any vets by early August, so we sailed there to provide essential emergency assistance. The crossing took a matter of an hour or so but when we arrived the state of devastation was quite astonishing with most buildings and the marketplace where our boat docked being unusable. We carried everything we would need to carry out neutering procedures on cats and dogs, treatment of multiple pets that turned up at our base (Salty Paws Animal Clinic).
At the end of my three weeks on Carriacou, I had a much better understanding of the severity of the situation there and the sheer scale of the task faced by resident vet Nadine Cerny and clinic founder Kathy Nowall. Myself and the other volunteers present were able to listen to Nadine and Kathy and help develop a system that allowed Carriacou Animal Hospital to start to reach the island’s population of pets at a time when it was needed more than ever."
Always ready to step in for animals in need
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