Vet access blackspots raise animal health alarm

New James Cook University-led research warns of animal welfare and biosecurity risks after discovering significant veterinary care ‘deserts’ across Australia.

The research, published in the Australian Veterinary Journal, has identified significant gaps in access to veterinary services across the country, particularly in regional and remote areas – raising concerns for animal health, welfare and national biosecurity.

“No veterinary care in Australia is really subsidised, and veterinarians go to where people can pay them,” explained lead researcher and JCU lecturer Dr Bronwyn Orr.

“Effectively, if a town has less than 2500 people, they’re unlikely to have a veterinary clinic.

“We were very particular in how we mapped out these care deserts so that every jurisdiction can look at their own areas, right down to the postcode, and see how bad it is.

“In states like Queensland, where small communities are spread across vast distances, people often can’t access veterinary services when they need them, and livestock producers are forced to pay significant travel costs to have a veterinarian come to them.

“Unfortunately, mirroring human health, the communities with the worst access to veterinary care often have significant indigenous populations, like Palm Island and more than 20 per cent of the Northern Territory's population.”

Dr Orr warns that such veterinary care deserts are heightening biosecurity and animal welfare risks.

“We're absolutely sitting on a ticking time bomb here,” she said.

“Biosecurity protocols, plans and preparations rely on people recognising emergency and exotic diseases and then calling the relevant authorities.

“No one else is better trained than a veterinarian to detect and diagnose disease.

“If we have less veterinarians on the front line, they're not going out to farms, they're not in these rural communities, then we have less trained eyes on the ground.

“Every single day there is a delay detecting a disease, like foot-and-mouth disease, it costs millions of dollars, so it's incredibly important to have vets in communities.

“Veterinary care deserts have an economic impact as well as an animal welfare impact because animals are going without treatment and suffering longer than they should.

“But there's a human health concern too because obviously we can catch diseases from animals.”

Dr Orr said that regional blackspots in veterinary care in Australia are likely to expand due to an ageing workforce, challenges associated with rural practice, and declining reliance on veterinarians within the livestock industry.

“Solutions must prioritise improving equity and access to veterinary services,” she said.

“This includes recruiting and training veterinarians in rural areas and exploring telemedicine trials, to allow people to connect with vets remotely when no in-person option is available.

“The Crisafulli government announced in December last year that they’re reviewing the Veterinary Surgeons Act for the first time in almost 100 years.

“This is a big opportunity for Queensland to future-proof their access to veterinary care and services.”