Vets: Aoife O’Sullivan, Martin Downes
Vet Nurses: Lulu Palmer, Victoria Marsden
Helpers: Tess Pollard, Deborah Lamb, Lizzie Wraight, Norman and Maureen Mills.
The Twinkle Trust is a UK registered charity that has been working on the island of Fuerteventura for over 10 years treating stray and abandoned cats. The charity premises consist of a dedicated operating theatre, knock-down room, quiet recovery room and an isolation unit. This year the charity has built several large cat runs for longer term residents that need to be confined.
The anaesthetic used for neutering was medetomidine, butorphanol and ketamine administered intramuscularly. All cats are given antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, de-wormed and treated for fleas and ear mites when present. Over the 6 days of the trip we neutered 372 cats, 184 of which were female. 391 cats were treated in total and we did treat several other conditions such as prolapsed rectum, prolapsed third eyelid, ruptured globe, monorchid, bilateral cryptorchid, squamous cell carcinoma on the ears and nose, gingivitis, abscesses, ringworm and two road traffic accidents. This year we also had several cases of micropthalmus, bilateral and unilateral, which was very interesting. We also removed a air gun pellet from a cat and treated several corneal ulcers. Luckily, we had the opportunity to use Convenia this year which was fantastic for patients with no long term carers. Twinkle has also got an oxygen machine this year which was fantastic for stressed or shocked patients. Unfortunately, 5 cats were euthanized on humane grounds over the week; all with conditions causing severe pain and suffering such as a squamous cell carcinoma eroding the nasal cavity, and a severely dehydrated cat with renal failure.
Due to the timing of this trip, we found that almost all the cats were anoestrus, apart from one pregnant female in the very early stages of pregnancy. This made anaesthetic and surgical conditions much more favourable and we had only minor anaesthetic complications and no losses.
On different Twinkle trips we have had shortages of cats but on this trip there were no such issues. The cats kept appearing and we ended up with a recovery room bursting at the seams with 86 cats. This meant the entire team needed to help with feeding and cleaning each morning and evening which did involve extra work. Our day began at 9am at the clinic, operating usually was underway by 10am. Everyone made huge efforts to work hard and after a quick lunch break we continued operating until 7pm but on several occasions we were still operating at 10pm. Although these days were long and required many coffee breaks, the team worked like Trojans and each evening there was a tremendous sense of satisfaction when we finished up.
One evening, we were left without running water but we managed to overcome this with a continuous stream(!) of buckets into the operating theatre.
This year we had a few nights out in the local resort which was great fun but probably the most entertainment was derived from hopeless driving and many, many failed attempts at parallel parking!
Many thanks to WVS and the Twinkle Trust for organising this trip. It is a fantastic opportunity for anyone interested in vet charity trips to get started as it has great facilities and is a worthwhile project.
