Chariman’s Report
Terry Casey
Chairman SA Equine Veterinary Association Cell: 083 327 0237
Once again the year is nearly over. Christmas is less than
ninety days away ! Again!! Each year seems to go quicker
and quicker and their never seems to be enough time in
the day to finish everything that needs to be done.
I recently attended the annual Beva(British Equine
Veterinary association) congress on behalf of Saeva. Our
our old friend Johnathan Pycock as now the ex-chairman.
The incoming chair is Renate Weller. Renate has promised
to make Sa her congress of choice for next year so we
look forward to seeing her at Saeva 2019.
Beva, as always, is a fantastic congress to attend. There are
always multiple sessions running at the same time leaving
you with a huge variety of talks to attend and always
rueing a few missed opportunities. For me undoubtedly
one of the highlights of this year’s congress was getting
to meet Princess Anne. Princess Anne is Beva’s patron.
Another highlight of this year’s congress was listening to
this year’s plenary speaker, Juan Samper. Juan Samper is
also an old friend of Sa’s. He expressed a desire to return
to Sa in the future. Juan spoke about the challenges
that the veterinary profession faces in the future. The
topics ranged from the changing demographics of the
profession to the role that technology will play in the
future.
One of the reasons that Saeva committee has decided
to for attending Beva each year is the attend the
International Equine Associations Presidents Meeting
(IEAP) meeting . This meeting started some 10-odd years
4
ago and each year it goes from strength to strength.
This year there were 20-odd “presidents” present from
various associations around the world. I am always
surprised at the number of communal problems that
exist between the different associations. This year, as
always, there was a round table discussion with what
each president perceived to be the three top challenges
the profession in that country/association is undergoing.
There was undertaking from this year’s Beva chairman
to work on a communal solution for what was perceived
to be a global issues between the organisations. The
two points that were selected as the most common
problems were antibiotic stewardship and the lack of
young veterinarians entering the profession
Antibiotic stewardship was deemed to be an emerging
problem by most of the professions. Some countries,
for example Spain, have legislation in place requiring
antibiotic prescription to be logged at a central data
place. Some countries, for example the Usa have no
requirements as yet. Everybody, however, seemed to like
the Beva system. It would not surprise me to see that this
programme becomes the most accepted programme
globally.
As a side line for those of you that don’t know Saeva
has elected to use the New Zealand System for its
A/b awareness initiative. Also on the website under
the Procedures and policies section is a suggested
• Equine Health Update •