By Leslie Moriarty
Herald Writer
SNOHOMISH — For Jeff Duke, just seeing that the veterinary clinic in Mongolia had running water was a measure of success.
But the fact that animal surgeries could now be done under sterile conditions with modern equipment was like working back home.
"These people have so little," said Duke, a Snohomish veterinarian who is doing charitable work in Mongolia. "Their clinics were years out of date."
Duke, a small-animal veterinarian at the Pilchuck Veterinary Hospital, has done charitable work for the Christian Veterinary Mission for the past few years. He came across the program while vacationing in New Mexico and was asked to sponsor a veterinarian from Mongolia at his home.
Jeff Duke |
Orgil Doloonjin, an animal surgeon and dean of the veterinary school at Mongolian State University of Agriculture in Ulan Bator, the capital city of Mongolia, stayed with Duke and watched him work.
Following that, Duke made his first visit to Mongolia in 2000 to witness the outdated conditions that exist in most animal hospitals there.
Mongolia, a landlocked country between Russia and China, is about the size of Texas. It has been independent since 1990, when the Soviet Union disbanded.
The capital city is modern, Duke said, with an airport and high-rise apartment buildings, but rural Mongolia is not.
"It’s like stepping back into the 18th or 19th centuries," he said.
There are only dirt roads, and people live in huts. They have few modern conveniences.
Throughout the country, medicine for animals is not modernized. Even Doloonjin’s veterinary practice was behind the times, Duke said.
"They don’t have antibiotics or any medicines, other than a few holistic practices," he said. "They don’t have any way to sterilize things before exams."
| Mission specialist
To contact Jeff Duke about the Christian Veterinary Mission, call the Pilchuck Veterinary Hospital at 360-568-3111, or see www.vetmission.org.
|
Instead, they poured vodka on their hands.
Most veterinary students learn only from old Russian language books about the care of cattle, horses and dogs. Most students, too, never work on a live animal until they are out of school.
But animals are important in Mongolia. More than 40 percent of the country’s people live as nomadic herders caring for horses, goats, sheep and cattle. For many rural Mongolians, animals provide the only food — meat and milk — they have to survive.
And many of the herding animals in Mongolia are subject to outbreaks of anthrax, foot-and-mouth disease, rabies and bubonic plague. Without antibiotics, hundreds of animals can die in a single outbreak.
"That is why it is so important that the care of their animals is improved," Duke said.
He took on the mission of helping to provide equipment and supplies to veterinary hospitals in Mongolia.
Duke took a second trip to Mongolia over the summer to oversee the opening of a new clinic with running water, sanitary supplies and equipment — even a heart monitor for animal patients during surgery.
"Before the monitor, the veterinarians had to guess at how the animal was doing," Duke said.
He plans a third trip to Mongolia next summer. Central Christian Church in Snohomish helps sponsor his trips.
He said the outreach work is rewarding.
"Many of the veterinarians aren’t experienced in lab work and surgery," he said. "Watching them learn and be able to maintain the health of their animals is really something."
You can call Herald Writer Leslie Moriarty at 425-339-3436
or send e-mail to moriarty@heraldnet.com.
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