The pandemic has continued to rage around us but the workload at the clinic never slowed. If anything, as the summer took shape with the winter rain storms easing and the temperatures already topping 35oC, the flow of patients arriving at our doors kept the team extremely busy.
Arranging for much needed supplies into the country, (bandages, dog & cat wormers, flea & tick treatment, antibiotics and other specialist medications, particular for our older residents) became as difficult to do as it was to get animals out of the country! There were a few weeks when we almost ran out of vital vaccines.
And then we started the Creamy’s Legacy build just to add to the chaos at the Nowzad clinic.
In record time we had reached the full amount of funding we needed to extend our quarantine and isolation units. It is vital that we keep newly arrived dogs and cats separate from other animals being treated or cared for at Nowzad. It takes a full 6 weeks for a dog or cat to be fully vaccinated against the host of canine and feline diseases that plague Afghanistan.
We were determined that after losing Creamy to rabies, whilst we can’t cure a dog infected with this horrible disease, we can ensure that we have the facilities fit for purpose to deal professionally with all cases that enter our clinic. The building work is on-going (any builders out there reading this would want to look the other way at some of the construction site practices that occur out here…), with the builders on site at 0530 every morning and usually not knocking off until 1930 – 6 days per week, our new facilities are taking shape!
Plans included creating additional space for a 2 table surgery room (currently the new operating table is stuck in the UK…), a dedicated dog washing room (we are super excited by that feature) and of course, the dedicated isolation wing. By building up we have now created space to extend the old quarantine wing.
As Dr Mujtaba says; ‘I am so excited about this new building as I no longer have to tell clients that their even though their animal needs hospitalization we can’t take it as we are full.
Now I am also very happy that we will have separate lab and can carry out far more tests here at Nowzad. And the new isolation facilities will mean we can isolate more cats with serious respiratory problems and that will make our life much easier!’
And yes there is a worker down that hole digging away...... health and safety please look the other way!