“I've thought about leaving the profession a couple of times. Just the burnout, the long hours, you know, the low remuneration.” Via TheFeedSBS Outback Vet Pilot
Dr Campbell Costello says his two skills as a pilot and vet have allowed him to travel all over Australia, servicing remote communities which haven’t seen a vet in years.He’s spent twelve years working as a veterinary practitioner but he’s also managed to get himself a pilot licence and says flying serves as a pressure relief valve after a tough day working on animals.“It's just the aeroplane and I. It’s my way to decompress. As I say, take off my vet hat and put on my pilot hat.
A short drive out of town we meet farm owner Maryellen Blacket, who has lived in Boulia for the past eight years. She’s got four kids and has lost count of the number of animals. Today she needs Dr Costello to examine a young orphan camel.“If there’s something very serious, you've nearly gotta go to Townsville for real big things like horses with colic or broken legs and bits and pieces like that..”And Townsville is about a ten-hour drive from Boulia, Maryellen explains.
She’s been advertising a full-time vet position to work at her clinic for more than a year now. But instead has had to rely on locums such as Campbell to help when they can.“I don't really see my partner very often because by the time I get home at 10, 11:30 at night [after starting work at 8.30 or 9am], he's had dinner and he is gone to bed.”
After spending several years at university, vets are among the lowest paid professions upon graduation.Warwick Vale, president of the Australian Veterinary Association, says the industry’s staff shortage has almost reached a crisis point. It means that the staff in those clinics are working harder than ever right at a time when animal ownership is soaring.
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