I took part in a WVS neutering programme this September, volunteering at the SPA-SOS dog and cat shelter in Kiev, Ukraine as a final year vet student. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the shelter and gained a lot of surgical experience. The UK team comprised another final year vet student, a vet, a vet nurse and a charity worker involved with adoption of the shelter dogs by people in the UK. The five of us stayed in a nice hotel in the centre of the city for our ten day visit. Tamara ran the shelter and there we two Ukrainian vets and several shelter staff to cope with the large number of animals.
A typical day started off with a trip to the local cafe for breakfast followed by Tamara picking us up at 11am to avoid the traffic rush (the city can get extremely congested at times and the shelter was a good half hour’s drive from the hotel). We would begin with examining and treating any sick animals; there were a number of quite ill puppies during our time at the shelter, many of which needed twice daily antibiotic dosing, subcutaneous fluids and intraperitoneal glucose, eyedrops, worming, flea treating, hand feeding and lots of TLC! After this we would set up for the day’s ops and get started.
The UK vet was a fantastic tutor who took us students through the bitch/cat spays and dog/cat castrates step by step, letting us do a lot of surgery. The days went by very quickly, there was little time for lunch but it was important for us to keep drinking fluids as it got very hot in the surgery. We would have to down tools at about 5.30pm; all of us wanted to keep working as there was an endless list of things to do with the animals but couldn’t hold up the taxi waiting to take us back to the hotel. This gave us time to relax before heading out in the evening to enjoy the local cuisine and get a good night’s sleep.
The shelter’s surgery facilities were very basic but the staff worked with what they had and we were able to adapt quite quickly, through initially it was a bit of a shock to the system being used to the luxuries in the UK! There was no shortage of antibiotics and analgesics but there were no anaesthetic gases or Propogol and we used Ketamine / Xylazine for both the dogs and cats, which was often difficult to titrate to effect. A high proportion of the bitches and queens were heavily pregnant and close to term; obviously this was unavoidable but these animals were not ideal candidates for surgery. There was no shortage of gloves but we had to make our own drapes and were suspicious that the autoclave was not working fully and concerned that the instruments were not wholly sterilised, but again, we had to do out best with what we had. The language barrier made it difficult for the UK team to communicate with the Ukrainian vets and there was only so much Tamara could translate in relation to veterinary care but fortunately our UK vet and one of the local vets both spoke German and were able to discuss some things.
Kiev was a very cultural city with lots of lovely bars and restaurants (most of which had menus translated into English). There were plenty of places to exchange our money into Hyrvnia (you can exchange from pounds but it is easier with euros/dollars) and things were reasonably priced. We had a day off on Sunday and Tamara had lunch with us and showed us all the beautiful historical sights, as well as organising for some of her colleagues to take us on walking tours some evenings. Overall I really enjoyed my time at the shelter! I met lots of lovely people whom I will hopefully stay in contact with in the future and I fell in love with all of the dogs, many of which would sit contentedly in surgery and watch us work away and at times crave lots of attention, which we were all more than happy to give! I learned a great deal, the most valuable being how to deal with difficult surgical situations when working in quite basic facilities, picking up tips which will be invaluable to me as a new graduate. I would recommend the trip to students who wish to gain surgical experience and an insight into the Ukrainian culture.
