Veterinary team from Almonte provides crucial care in Canada’s North

Dogs, both pets and strays, are a fixture in Nunavut’s capital — yet despite its large canine population, Iqaluit lacks a permanent veterinarian.

Staff at Iqaluit Animal Hospital can provide basic care such as vaccinations and treating minor injuries, and a semi-retired vet in Cornwall, Ont., offers some remote consultation.

But Kristen Haven, a manager with Nunavut Animal Rescue, which owns the local animal hospital, says some cases are too difficult to deal with there.

“We do have quite a few dogs that come in that get either hit by cars or attacked by [other] dogs, and often those are things that they do need to fly down [south for],” she said.

But airlifting animals south for veterinary care can be prohibitively expensive. So instead, the vets are coming to them.

For the past few years, teams of veterinarians and veterinary technicians from eastern Ontario have been travelling north to perform critical procedures. Most recently, it was a team of volunteers from Almonte, Ont.

Two vets and two technicians from the Mississippi Mills Animal Hospital spent eight days in the North, returning home last Sunday.

Veterinary technician Keira Fuchs says their main goal was to provide spays and neuters, plus additional surgeries as needed. In the end, they saw about 60 patients including some cats, Fuchs said.

“We tried to do as many as possible with our time there,” she told CBC.

Fuchs said the team typically worked from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., but were also available for after-hour calls, including an emergency C-section on a pregnant dog.

It was Fuchs’s first trip to the North, but one of the vets on the team marked their fourth visit to Iqaluit. In addition to their expertise, the team brought up surgical equipment and medication — much-needed supplies that can be difficult to find in the North, Haven said.

Local volunteers assisted the team with cleaning surgical equipment, taking dogs for walks and finding food for the animals in their care.

Haven says the Nunavut Animal Rescue covers the volunteers’ flights, and often finds them a place to stay while they’re there.

She says volunteers have arrived from across Ontario and other provinces including Manitoba. Typically, a team comes up every month or two, but sometimes several months go by without a visit.

Haven said the hospital is hoping to take delivery of new X-ray and ultrasound machines in the near future. It also has the funding to hire a full-time veterinarian for one year, but has been unable to find the right person for the job.

For now, she says the volunteer vets and techs from down south are providing an invaluable service.

“It’s hard to imagine being in a place where you can’t access that care at all, and your only choice is to get on a flight for three hours,” Haven said. “So I think having even the basics here and someone that [people] can call and get advice from has been huge.”

A report written by Liam Baker

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