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By Jeni Hood
Australian’s veterinary workforce is extremely stressed and suffers high levels of acute and chronic injury, according to initial findings
from Australia’s first comprehensive retrospective cohort study of the health risks facing veterinarians.
Associate Professor Andrew Vizard, team investigator from the University of Melbourne veterinary school, said it was clear even from the
preliminary findings that, ‘all is not well and happy in James Herriot land”.
He presented the interim results from the census of 2808 graduates from Australian veterinary schools since 1960, last month at the Australian
Veterinary Association Victorian Division annual general meeting. The 2808 participating veterinarians represented a 49 per cent response rate.
The findings showed approximately 40 per cent of responding veterinarians had suffered between one to five dog bites, and the same number of
cat bites, in the previous 12 months.
In the same period, nearly 20 per cent of the veterinarians had been injured. Overall, approximately 50 per cent reported a chronic injury,
with the same number receiving a significant, acute injury since graduation.
Professor Vizard said the fact that more than half the veterinarians occasionally handled an animal without adequate restraint
suggested there was plenty of room for improvement – especially when most hazards of the veterinary industry were “predictable”.
He said the early results also identified stress as a major health problem. Standard testing for psychological stress demonstrated that
approximately 30 per cent of veterinarians were suffering “minor psychological distress”.
This percentage of the workforce affected by stress compares with occupational classification rates in other industries of between
13 and 25 per cent and indicates “highly strained work forces”’ he said.
When chronicity of the stress was considered, the number of veterinarians suffering psychological distress rose to an alarming 55 per cent.
The data also showed that more female veterinarians were stressed than their male counterparts. Professor Vizard said the disturbing preliminary
findings had already attracted comment.
“An experienced occupational health and safety (OHS) official with a major Australian mining corporation said the data ‘reeked of major, major
problems’ in the veterinary industry. He said the situation appeared similar to the unacceptable working conditions that prevailed in mining
40 to 50 years ago.” He said.
Professor Vizard was concerned that below par and unsafe work practices were “almost accepted” as normal within the veterinary industry
and has called for a “cultural change” that embraces more collective responsibility for OHS.
He attributes some of the lack of attention to OHS as “growing out of the owner-operator culture in traditional veterinary practice
where the owner was willing to take certain risks”.
This practice structure was changing rapidly, he said, with more employed veterinarians now being asked “to take on the risks for someone
else”.
“I think we have a duty to fellow employees that they should have a safe and caring workplace – the situation at present is that some
veterinarians are not fulfilling this fundamental obligation,” he said.
He said any industry that routinely leads to stressed or injured workers was, beyond any humanitarian
concerns, “inefficient”.
Professor Vizard said he was not surprised by the data, given his experience in the profession over
a long period of time.
Team leader, medical epidemiologist Lin Fritschi from the School of Population Health at the University
of Western Australia (UWA), said data relating to suicide and cancer were still being analysed.
“We are in process of matching the cohort with the National Cancer Statistics Clearing House and the National Death Index. Due to privacy
legislation, the process of obtaining ethical approval to do the matching is quite complex and is continuing,” she said.
Dr Fritschi hopes to receive more funding to allow this part of the work to continue. Originally, the project received a UWA research grant,
as well as funding from the Cancer Foundation of Western Australia.
Other investigators include Dr Lesley Day, Monash University Accident Research Centre; Associate Professor Ian Robertson, Division
of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, Murdoch University; Associate Professor Carol Bower, TVW Telethon Institute for Child Health Research,
UWA; Associate Professor David Morrison, Director, Centre for Organisational Research, Department of Psychology, UWA, and Ms Adeleh
Shirangi PhD scholar at the School of Population Health.
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