NSW Division President Report - February

Hi! This is my first president update since taking on the role of acting president for the AVA NSW Division. Diane Ryan, who has been a fantastic president for the division has had to step down for personal reasons and we wish her all the best!

Stepping into the president role has been eye-opening. The number of moving parts that the AVA team is across is impressive – new legislation, departmental changes, and an upcoming election mean that we need to make vets’ voices heard across breadth of arenas. In the last few weeks alone, we have:

• Participated in workshops with the EPA to guide their handling of wildlife in disaster responses.

We need to make sure that vets are properly considered in these plans, and that funding supports the veterinary care of animals and keeps vets at the centre of decision making around animal health. The work on this is just beginning, but with our extreme weather it is only a matter of time before vets are yet again involved with disaster recovery withing NSW. We have a lot of lessons from the last few years, and if you have participated in care of wildlife after a disaster, please reach out to share your experiences.

• Met with the Veterinary Practitioners Board about advocating for vets across the state.

If you have been to an AVA Branch event recently you may have heard from Steve Ferguson, president of the NSW VPB, about the activities of the board in the last few years, as well as some of their challenges in managing their role of keeping veterinarians practicing to an acceptable standard, but also supporting veterinarians through what can be a daunting process. It is a tricky balancing act, but we only need to look at experiences across the country to be glad that our board is populated by veterinarians who have the best interests of the profession at heart.

The Board is also conducting hospital inspections across the state which are back in full-swing after covid interruptions. Feedback from AVA members has been that the inspections are going smoothly. Even if you don’t have an inspection booked already, you can download the hospital inspection checklist to make sure that everything is in tip-top shape.

• Performed NSW election advocacy.

The AVA NSW division with consultation from members put together our NSW election platform earlier in the year. You can read it here. This platform has been circulated across the various parties and many individual ministers and MPs. We have had several meetings to discuss the platform with feedback focussed on the sustainability of the veterinary profession in the state. We have highlighted the amount of free work that veterinarians do which contributes to the public benefit, whether this is dealing with stray dogs, or providing biosecurity services. We are hoping for some pre-election commitments in the areas of workforce sustainability and stray animal management.

We have more meetings scheduled ahead of the election, but to have an even bigger impact, please send your local member the election platform and request a meeting. Most of our elected representatives are animal lovers at heart, but we need to make sure they realise that the veterinary profession needs help if we are going to be able to continue to have the positive impact on our state. There is a guide on how to contact your local member available here and the committee and AVA Staff are happy to go along to the meetings with you and coordinate.

Now, for some exciting CPD!

EADs (Emergency Animal Diseases) are all the rage lately – with Foot and Mouth Disease and Lumpy Skin Disease on our doorstep we need to make sure that as vets we are prepared for EADs in all forms, and not just the ones we are familiar with in our regular practice. To help prepare vets, Local Land Services, with the cooperation of the AVA are putting on a series of FREE workshops for veterinarians across the state. These workshops are coming up in:

• Sydney
• Wagga Wagga
• Armidale
• Dubbo

I highly encourage you to attend the nearest workshop to you. Plus, the day is structured so that you can pop in and out, so multiple people in the practice may be able to attend throughout the day. Find out more details here.

And if that’s not enough for you, we are bringing a regional conference back in 2023!
15th-16th of June in Dubbo we will be hosting some face-to-face CPD and networking and would love to see you there. For anybody that has been webinar’d out the past few years it will be great to get together again. Stay tuned for more details, but if I were you, I’d save the date now!

And a final reminder, the NSW AGM is just around the corner, on the 20th of March at 7pm. Please register your attendance for the Annual Meeting here.

I look forward to picking up with the new committee after the AGM meeting – 2023 will be another big year for the Vet profession in NSW.

Talk soon!

Zach

Dr Zachary Lederhose
Acting President, AVA NSW Division