For immediate release
Johannesburg, 17 March 2025
More veterinary training facilities, less red tape will ensure South Africa has the vets it needs – SAVC
Despite veterinarians and veterinary nurses being placed back on South Africa’s critical skills list, the country still faces a severe shortage of these essential professionals – placing food safety and security, among other aspects, at risk, the South African Veterinary Council (SAVC) warns.
“We need to at least double the number of veterinarians and quadruple the number of veterinary nurses in the country, because these professionals are needed to ensure that our farmers produce healthy, productive herds and flocks,” says Dr Nandipha Ndudane, president of the SAVC.
“If there are not enough veterinary professionals working to contain diseases, there is a very real risk of, for example, foot-and-mouth disease spreading. Such outbreaks will affect food production and meat exports to neighbouring countries. We are concerned that the trickle-down impact on our agriculture sector could, ultimately, lead to a loss of jobs and a lowering of the GDP.”
At present, about 150 veterinary surgeons and 30 veterinary nurses graduate from the University of Pretoria every year – the only institution in South Africa currently offering degrees in these disciplines.
However, SAVC records show that an average of 170 letters of good standing are being issued per year to local veterinarians and veterinary nurses who are considering leaving the country to practise abroad. While not all may end up relocating, the SAVC is concerned that South Africa will soon be shedding more veterinarians and veterinary nurses every year than it is producing.
Compounding this issue is the fact that South Africa currently has only about 68 qualified veterinarians per million citizens, which is far below the international benchmark of 200 to 400 veterinarians per million. There is also a global shortage of qualified veterinarians, making South Africa’s well-trained and highly skilled veterinarians sought after and compounding the “brain drain”.
New veterinary faculty on the cards
There are some rays of hope on the horizon, however. Currently, the University of Fort Hare, the University of the Free State and the Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University have all expressed interest in opening a veterinary faculty to boost the supply of qualified veterinarians. A new private training institution, the Bronberg Veterinary School, has also been proposed.
“The SAVC has long supported the establishment of a second veterinary training faculty for the country, to address the pressing need for more veterinarians,” says Dr Ndudane.
“We have issued letters of support to all interested training institutions in this regard, and have made the SAVC’s training standards available to all institutions that have expressed interest. Various institutions have applied to the Department of Higher Education and Training to offer a degree in veterinary science, and these submissions are currently under consideration by the relevant authorities.”
She adds, “We are pleased that there is forward momentum in this regard. However, even if a new faculty is introduced soon, it will be several years before new veterinary graduates are produced. We need to boost the number of veterinarians and veterinary nurses sooner, especially in the rural areas where there is the greatest need.”
She believes that a way to urgently close the gap between the demand and supply of veterinarians is to ease the red tape that hinders foreign-trained veterinarians from coming to work in South Africa.
‘Expedite visas for foreign-trained vets’
Even though veterinarians and veterinary nurses were reinstated to the critical skills list in 2023, delays at the Department of Home Affairs in issuing work and critical skills visas mean that it is not easy for foreign veterinary professionals to relocate to South Africa. Presently, only about a dozen foreign-qualified veterinarians apply to work in South Africa every year.
Dr Ndudane urged the government to make it easier and more attractive for skilled foreign veterinarians to come and work here, and in general to help create a more conducive environment for local veterinarians to conduct business in South Africa so that they are more likely to stay in the country.
While para-veterinary professionals such as animal health technicians (AHTs) work extensively on commercial farms – as literally “the boots on the ground” – they must alert a veterinarian if they detect a possible outbreak of a controlled or notifiable disease. However, the shortage of veterinarians, especially in rural areas, increases the risk of such diseases spreading.
Dr Ndudane, who is also the principal of the Tsolo Agriculture and Rural Development Institute in the Eastern Cape, notes that positive steps are being taken to upskill more para-veterinary professionals to own and run their own businesses. Recently, for example, a number of AHTs took part in a training programme spearheaded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
In addition, the minuscule number of laboratory animal technologists (LATs) in the country recently received a major boost after the Health and Welfare Sector Education and Training Authority funded 10 students to write United Kingdom-based and SAVC registration examinations to qualify as LATs.
This has brought the number of these scarce para-veterinary professionals working in South Africa to 23, with hopes that a local qualification will soon be formulated to boost this discipline that renders an important service to medical and scientific research.
- Visit savc.org.za for more information, including:
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