Dear Editor,

March 17 is supposed to be a fun-loving day but this year, for the employees at the Provincial Veterinary Service and Laboratory it was anything but. Upon arrival at work, we were greeted by an email for a mandatory meeting with the Deputy Minister and Assistant Deputy Minister to begin at 10:30 am. We were informed that Veterinary Services and the Veterinary Laboratory were being cut and that a 3-year phase out plan would be instituted. Details of the plan were sparsely discussed but shared in an email shortly afterwards. The plan was clearly not a 3 year plan as being depicted, this is especially true for Veterinary Services where equine services will end in December of 2026 (9 month plan) and all veterinary support is to end as of the end of the fiscal year (1 year plan). The hope the government has is that the veterinarians currently in their employ will want to stay in NB and open private clinics to serve all of NB. To facilitate this they are offering the opportunity for veterinarians to purchase their work equipment to aid in starting out and will pay milage for them to go to out of the way farm premises. No other details of a transition plan exist. This raises several questions.

1)    Does the government know how many private veterinarians are needed to provide service to the livestock sector once provincial services are terminated?

2)    Are the 5 or so private practices currently working on equines sufficient to cover the number of animals being left without care?

3)    The government knows that the farm base in NB is broad and well spread out, leaving few areas with a high enough density of farms where private clinics could be based. Has the government looked at where these clinics might set up and priced out the budget required to pay milage for clinics to travel to the less animal dense regions?

4)    Does the government realize that although they are willing to pay this milage, these new private clinics do not have to use this service if they feel it is not financially feasible for their business to do so?

5)    With a known Canadawide shortage of livestock veterinarians, what evidence does the government have that private business will come to NB or that the veterinarians currently employed will want to stay? Moving to another province where jobs are available and they do not have to take on the debt of being a business owner is so much easier. Is the government going to offer other incentives for these veterinarians to stay? Has this been priced out?

The manner in which this decision has been presented gives the impression that the government has not done the due diligence in creating a detailed transition plan for veterinary services.  If the government has indeed done this due diligence and veterinary sector scan, it is in their best interest to display that data to show the public and their veterinarians the feasibility of the business model for private livestock veterinary service in NB.

Veterinarians are professional health care providers. They are reasonable people, and IF a detailed plan is presented that can show them a path forward in a private setting and allow sufficient time to adapt to this setting, I’m sure they would be open to listening. But it should be pointed out that the province has not been closed to private clinics from opening, in fact a private livestock veterinarian is operating in arguably the only area in the province with the farm density to make a clinic financially feasible (i.e. Sussex). Others have tried but could not make the livestock model work.  What is different now?

Tim Cushing

Veterinary Pathologist

New Brunswick Provincial Vet Lab