Sophie Putland had a lifelong love for all animals, but especially horses. (Supplied: Sophie’s Legacy)
In short:
A joint committee on the mental health of veterinarians in South Australia has made 32 recommendations to address poor wellbeing and suicidality in the industry.
Vets say daily abuse and a lack of understanding from clients are one of the biggest factors causing them harm.
What’s next?
The state government will consider the report, which was tabled in parliament this week, before responding to its recommendations.
Sophie Browne and her team of vets are verbally abused by clients on a daily basis.
The anger is almost always rooted in the same issue: a lack of understanding around the cost of care.
“We get told we’re only in it for the money, that we don’t care about the outcome of their pets … [that] if we really cared, we’d just save the animal for free,” Dr Browne said.
Sophie Browne runs an all-female team of vets out of Clare, in South Australia’s Mid North. (ABC Rural: Isabella Kelly)
“By the end of the week, some weeks, you [feel like] everyone appears to hate us,”
Dr Browne said.
From tragedy comes change
Dr Browne’s experience is not unique.
Gary and Kate Putland lost their daughter, Sophie Putland, to suicide in 2021. The industry she loved had cost her her life.
“Sophie was very, very determined; she knew what she wanted. She was very loving,” Kate Putland said.
Sophie Putland was a dedicated vet. (Supplied: Sophie’s Legacy)
Sophie Putland always loved animals, and there were lots of parts of being a vet that she adored. Others, not so much.
“It’s not uncommon for vets to do a double shift, an 18-hour shift, because they don’t have the staff,” Kate Putland said.
“There were times when she would ring us up at three o’clock in the morning after a shift, and she’d be sobbing.”
When she died, her parents started a charity in her honour: Sophie’s Legacy.
Kate Putland says she never expected her husband’s idea of Sophie’s Legacy to take off as it has. (ABC: Simon Goodes)
Uncovering industry issues
Sophie’s Legacy played a hand in the South Australian government green-lighting a parliamentary inquiry into the mental health and wellbeing of veterinarians in November 2024.
Now, that committee has handed down 32 recommendations.
Chaired by former veterinarian and MLC Sarah Game, the joint committee heard reports of excessive workloads and out-of-hours work, unsatisfactory remuneration, client abuse, and unclear regulations.
Sarah Game previously worked as a vet, and led the inquiry. (ABC News)
Questions about graduate preparedness were raised, with one submission sharing anecdotal evidence of a fresh graduate being required to perform complex surgery “with only a textbook for assistance”.
Several recommendations ultimately related back to financial issues, whether it be the cost-related abuse or the underpayment of veterinarians.
“Many veterinarians are actually working over 50 hours a week, and in the regions, plenty are working many more than that,” Ms Game said.
“Those vets are often earning less than the average weekly Australian wage.
“When you consider how highly qualified those people are, and the extraordinary stress and high expectations … you can understand why many of them are thinking of leaving, and those that are staying are feeling depressed and suffering high suicide rates.”
Sophie Browne says valuing yourself as a vet is crucial to maintaining wellbeing. (ABC Rural: Isabella Kelly )
Dr Browne agreed that pay was “one of the biggest issues” in the industry, without a simple solution.
“It becomes this very hard balancing act for clinics to be like, ‘Okay, we want to pay our staff more, but to do that we’re going to have to charge the client more,’ and we’re already receiving so much backlash over the perceived high cost of veterinary care.”
Regional vets slip through the cracks
Six of the 32 recommendations related directly to challenges faced specifically by regional vets, including an “unreasonable level of responsibility” for the care of lost and unowned animals, such as injured wildlife.
The report found a lack of consistency with local governments and unclear legislation had led to a public perception of vets as “the default drop-off location” for injured wildlife and other found animals, despite the responsibility lying primarily with local and state governments.
The committee heard vets had become the “default drop-off” point for injured and stray animals, despite the local and state governments holding responsibility. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)
Dr Browne, director of Clare Valley Veterinary Services in South Australia’s mid north, has these animals dropped off “daily”.
“Wildlife is one of those things that we’re all deeply passionate about, that we want to help our native wildlife … but it does come at a strain in the cost to the clinic that is, at this point, not covered at all,”
Dr Browne said.
Another recommendation was for an audit of the state’s capacity to respond to an “emergency animal disease outbreak”.
“We don’t have a lot of vets in the regions, and if we were to get … foot and mouth disease or something like that, we don’t have the boots on the ground,” Dr Browne said.
Regional vets play an important role in the country’s biosecurity. (ABC News: Bill Ormonde)
“I think it’s time that we started to place an importance on our food safety and our national biosecurity, the way we deal with health.”
Like its New South Wales counterpart before it, the committee recommended reform to expand the use of telehealth and electronic prescription services.
Another recommended current government support for regional healthcare workers to cover vets and vet students.
Putting it into practice
Newly-appointed Minister for Health Blair Boyer said the government would respond to the recommendations “in due course”, but said he was surprised to learn of the prevalence of client abuse in the industry.
“Unless people start treating veterinarians with the respect they deserve, you’re not going to have their services, or there’ll be fewer of them,”
he said.
“And if you think having fewer of them is going to help the price of their services, you’re very much mistaken.”