Common sense

Saipan is unique in the Pacific region. It has been blessed for many years relative to veterinary medicine. This started years ago when Dr. Dela Cruz came back to Saipan from veterinary school.

The amazing fact is that there are only three islands in the Pacific region that are blessed in this way. We are not counting Guam or Hawaii due to their long histories with the veterinary profession. Palau and American Samoa also enjoy the presence of a “government” veterinarian. These three veterinarians are tasked with animal regulatory matters, and other governmental responsibilities on their respective islands. Saipan stands out as the only island in the Pacific (again, not counting Guam or Hawaii) that not only has a government veterinarian but also a private practicing veterinarian.

If you live in the Marshall Islands, Pohnpei, Yap, Chuuk, the Mortlocks, or Kiribati, to name just a few, it’s accurate to say that you may never see a veterinarian on those islands.

Animals throughout the Pacific are born and die at the discretion of Mother Nature. A broken leg stays broken, a tumor kills the animal, countless diseases ravage the dog and cat populations. Maximum life expectancy averages three years, with much less for the feral animals.

Even on Saipan, 90 percent of pets die within the first six months of life, although the cared for percentage of pets is now routinely approaching a 15-year life expectancy. Compare this with the 8-year life expectancy when I got here in 2001.

Mother Nature is more concerned with efficient population control than with improving lives and conditions. Unfortunately, this is who is in charge of animal control on Saipan.

Look what happened to the human population once we put constraints on Mother Nature with vaccinations, improved nutrition, and overall health care. No longer do we see hundreds of thousands of people dying of typhus and cholera. No longer do children die of polio, whooping cough or typhoid fever. How many want to go back to 1950s health care for their family?

The responsibility of the veterinarian is the pet/animal side of this equation. My job as a practicing veterinarian is to keep Mother Nature at bay. My efforts are enhanced when working with concerned pet owners and my overall success depends largely on this cadre of individuals.

This sometimes runs counter to peoples’ financial concerns but lack of preventative care is penny wise and pound foolish. The unvaccinated, uncared for pet dies at the same rate as the feral animal population, simply because the owners in question have surrendered the responsibility of health care to Mother Nature.

How many people would bring their pets back for spaying and/or neutering if “only” 5 percent died post op. Even this “small” surgical mortality rate would dissuade most pet owners from having spays and neuters performed on their pets, and rightly so.

Remember a few years back when the bean counters in the HMOs tried to dictate to the physicians what they could and couldn’t do? Their emphasis on financial management over medical management very often met with fatal consequences.

A zero percent mortality rate with elective surgeries is not only possible but attainable by observing current standards of care relative to surgical risk management. At Paradise Island Animal Hospital we follow current standards of care.

One of my goals when I moved to Saipan was to show other veterinarians that you could make a living practicing veterinary medicine on the islands of the Pacific, while practicing according to 2009 standards.

What a difference another five or six veterinarians scattered thoughout the Pacific region would make. Two other veterinarians had come to Saipan to establish veterinary practices, and two left. They found the environment not suited to running a private veterinary practice. That number is actually 10-12 if you count all of the “relief veterinarians” that worked at PIAH while it was for sale, and chose not to stay and buy the practice; and don’t forget Dr. John Thomas who left after only two weeks on Saipan. He left due to a threatened revocation of his license by the CNMI government without the benefit of any due process.

The clear message that Saipan has been sending for many years is that veterinarians are expendable. But how expendable are they? How difficult would it be for any small town to attract a practicing veterinarian? How about if that town was 10,000 miles from the U.S. mainland? What if that town had a rapidly failing economy? What if that town had consistently shown a lack of respect for anyone in the veterinary profession?

The overwhelming majority of Saipan residents are waiting for a mythological veterinarian that cares nothing about money, charges only what people can “afford”, and happily goes through his day helping the poor. I don’t know of anyone that can measure up to that ideal, and yet it persists with many unmet expectations.

There are approximately 86,000 veterinarians in the mainland U.S., and only one found his way out to the island of Saipan and stayed. The odds of getting another veterinarian would be 1 in 86,000 or 0.0012 percent. The odds of being struck by lightning twice in the same spot are probably greater.

Veterinarians, like most people, tend to go where success is ensured, or at least likely. Veterinarians are obliged to run a business in order to keep their hospitals open. We are not considered for economic stimulus money, but then we do not cause wholesale collapse of economies either. In short, the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence; it’s greener where you water it. This is the reality of every endeavor.

Imagine having a veterinarian that practices good medicine and surgery, and stays for 20 years, hopefully attracting other veterinarians. That’s how you get choices.

Saipan has been blessed but is in danger of squandering this blessing. It may not get another change given the economy, and the reality of life in the Pacific. This makes me very sad.