IT IS a dark and stormy night. The best cow in the herd is having trouble calving. You frantically call up the local veterinarian and … the line is disconnected.
This unpleasant scenario may be closer than many livestock producers realize. The Western College of Veterinary Medicine, based in Saskatoon, is in danger of losing its accreditation.
If that happens, veterinary students could still attend the college, but after graduation would have to take accreditation tests, at additional personal expense, to become licensed to practise. Other things being equal, students would likely opt for education at an accredited veterinary college, and there aren’t any others in Western Canada.
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Ergo, a shortage of western Canadian veterinarians.
Like so many challenges facing agriculture, the core problem is lack of money. Without more of it, the college is unable to upgrade its facilities or adequately compensate its staff. That’s where the college sits now.
Why? Because the four western provinces, which fund the college, have not devised a funding arrangement to replace a 1994 plan that expired in 1999.
Sources are tight-lipped about the reasons for this abdication of provincial responsibility, but we suspect politics is taking priority over good sense.
Meanwhile, the veterinary college is educating students in 2001 using funding allocations devised in 1994. That’s abysmal, considering the pace of technological change and the importance of retaining qualified professors.
Granted, farmers and ranchers might not be too sympathetic to 1994-level financing, considering the dismal pace of price increases for most commodities in equivalent years.
But producers should not forget they’re major users of graduates who gain their expertise in large animal medicine through the vet college. There’s a direct relationship between herd health and the bottom line.
In the bigger picture, veterinary expertise is critical to food safety because it is used in meat inspection and disease diagnosis. Public safety and the country’s international reputation as a safe food exporter are at issue.
Just this past February the federal auditor general warned the Canadian Food Inspection Agency about its inadequate plans to replace food inspectors due to retire. Some of those inspectors are veterinarians, and presumably some replacements will be WCVM grads.
A vet college in accreditation jeopardy is particularly alarming when we consider the push by governments and industry for expansion of the western Canadian livestock industry. If producers are to heed this advice, there must be enough veterinarians to support herd health and growth.
A plea to the four western provincial governments: Devise a new funding arrangement for the veterinary college. Do it quickly and do it generously.
