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Volunteer Diary
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Lennon Foo – Neutering Clinic Ko Lanta
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| I first heard about this project in early August 2008 via a forwarded email from my friend. I was in between jobs so naturally was interested. However, I was disappointed to find out that all the places had been taken up. As time passed, I thought nothing more of it. On the 28th August at approximately 1pm, I was walking along the streets of Torquay, Devon considering whether to head for the gym or not when I received a call from WVS asking if I was still available for the trip. The catch was that I had to make the flight that very evening at Heathrow! Then the mad rush of getting to the laundry for clean clothes and getting the necessary information from the internet, booking a parking space, etc started. I managed to grab a few clothes in mad panic of 10 minutes and drove like a demon to Heathrow. I met Jan, a Belgique vet, who was the other vet that was going for the same project before boarding the plane for Bangkok. | |
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Only on the plane did I have time to read all the information about where I was going and what was expected of me, etc! I had to chuckle to myself when I read the bit about how essential it was getting the immunizations and malaria tablets ready months before the trip. I had only a few hours…
When we reached Bangkok for the transit flight to Phuket, no one expected Phuket Airport to close due to the protest that was going on! |
| We had to disembark the plane and look for accommodation in while the Thai sorted their politics and airport out! At this point in time, I had to marvel at how random life may be… Only less than 24 hours ago, I was wondering whether to go to the gym in Torquay and now I am stranded in Bangkok! How bizarre!
We spent 3 nights in Bangkok while waiting for things to settle. I even managed to do some shopping which was brilliant. Shopping in Thailand is an experience out of this world… On Monday morning, we finally caught a flight out to Krabi (which was nearer than Phuket for Ko Lanta) and took a 2.5hour bus ride to Ko Lanta. We reached Ko Lanta at lunch time. We merely had time to put our bags down before being set to work and I did 3 bitch spays and 1 dog castration then. This is what I was here for!!! Ko Lanta is a little island that is made up of 80% Muslims who loathe dogs and some even poison them! Needless to say, local help was extremely restricted and scarce. The routine was pretty standard. Every morning, the dog catchers head out at 6am to catch as many dogs and cats as possible. |
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We have breakfast at about 730am before heading out to the village hall in Saladan to start work at 9am. We took turns to play nurse as and when needed. The dog catchers were some of the best dog whisperers and nurses I have ever met. For the dogs, we used atropine, xylazine for premeds and pentobarbitone for general anesthetic (about 20min of surgical time). If the animal wakes up during the procedure, more pentobarbitone would be administered intravenously. |
| There was no clinical examination performed apart from the weight taken for the medication. For the cats, we used zoletil (zolezepam and tiletamine) and atropine. No intubation was performed and anesthetic was not monitored. No oxygen was available if needed. All animals received long acting antibiotics, rabies vaccination and ivermectin injections. We used razors to clip the surgical sites. It was prepped using povidine-iodine. The surgical kit was pretty minimal as well. It was made up of 3 medium artery forceps, a rat tooth forceps, a pair Gillies, a pair of scissors, 3 swabs, a pair of gloves and a white drape. All needles, blades and spay hooks were in wet sterilization and reused till blunt. All syringes were reused and only needles were changed. Tables were cleaned using trigene and the drapes that were originally used for the procedure. There were no extra towels or disposables for wiping down.
Dr Max was the fastest vet on site, performing bitch spays on average time of 15 minutes. He was exceptionally precise and concise in his technique and I benefited immensely by learning from him. The accommodation provided by Junie was superb. We each had a bungalow. There was no air-condition but the fans on the ceilings were more than sufficient. She actually ran a cooking school as well so food was great. In fact, food was the highlight of the entire trip! It was amazingly cheap and tasty! There were 3 days when we had to set up a mobile clinic in the gypsy village, which was located the other side of the island as it was more efficient than bringing the dogs from there to Saladan. That was pretty special… Talk about spaying in extreme conditions…We were allocated a grass patch in the base of a little slope and had red/green tent put up. |
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The tents provided good shelter but the unfortunate colour of red meant that looking for bleeders was extremely challenging! On the 1st day, a rain rendered the area flooded. So we were performing bitch spays in ankle deep of mud, mosquitoes biting, me sweating like a pig due to the humidity. Poor lighting being in the tent, rain falling into the wound (as we had to shift the surgical table out to improve lighting!) and the local drunk making loud sudden weird noises from time to time! |
| So yes, I am proud to say that I have performed bitch spays in conditions much more extreme than I would have ever done in the UK
In 8.5 days, we neutered 161 animals. There were 2 anesthetic deaths. One was a puppy after a routine castration was performed. He was still breathing regularly after the castration but stopped breathing about 20 minutes later. We failed to resuscitate him. On retrospect, it could be any sort of congenital abnormality that was not detected initially leading to the puppy being a poor candidate for an anesthetic. The other dog that died after a routine castration had been sedated before the anesthetic as it was vicious. Whether there was a drug interaction reaction was hard to determine as other vicious dogs had the same medication. Apart from these deaths, the rest of the procedures were uneventful. We had to cleanse and debride a few maggot wounds as well. |
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In all, I felt it was an amazing experience. Apart from getting loads of surgical experience, the scarcity of resources has rendered me humble of what is actually needed for similar routine procedures that is performed all over the world. Also, it merely reflected how spoilt we are practicing in the UK when we complain about our facilities. I have made some really good friends there that I plan to visit when I go back to Phuket in January next year. I plan to return to Ko Lanta and help out again at some point of time.. |
| It has truly been an eye opener and I thoroughly recommend it to any vet students, vets and vet nurses | |