Our local vets can easily spay/neuter 3,000 animals per year provided this program is properly funded. The advantage of an on-going program such as this are:
1. Each animal gets proper exam and evaluation by local vet who can follow up with additional treatments and care for problems such as tick borne disease, heart worm treatments, preventative health care etc.
2. Any problems arising can easily be handled by the vet/clinic who performed the surgery.
3. There is no mad scramble to reach a target but instead a methodical, continuing program which will eventually end our pet over population problem.
4. The Bahamian veterinary profession will grow with an additional 14 vets over the next 4 years when 14 students presently in vet school return home. This will allow this project to accelerate
5. The participating vets can spay and neuter their patients in a familiar clinic with an experienced team on hand. These at cost spays can be integrated into the clinics normal work day.

Not lies...time and skills donated...someone else picks up the tab for the materials used. What's so hard to understand d about that?

Not so Jack; it's a hysterical attack on the Bahamian veterinary profession.

Jack, there is no reason that the wonderful process you describe should stop! Continue the good work, keep contact with the people you have helped, partner with the local vets who have volunteered their clinics and their time for spays and neuters.
Why do you think that foreign vets are such essential part if this process?

Yes but laws at least give us a place to start. Without laws where do we begin? And we have to be very patient; changing things takes a long time!

Of course there is an absolute need for free and low cost spays hence the several animal welfare groups that sponsor these surgeries. All vets here participate in these programs and in this way give back for the good of the animals and the Bahamas.

For your information new laws concerning animal welfare have been drafted and passed through the House of Assembly. Several of our VMAB members worked on the committee that drafted this legislation . It took a long time and the full cooperation of the vets and animal welfare groups. Now finally the Animal Control and Board has been formed and the work of implementing these new laws can begin.

We don't sit on our asses much! We all work hard in an extremely demanding profession and all of us are compassionate and have a great love for animals; if we did not we would not last long.5

They also cater to people who cannot pay by assisting with low and at cost spays on behalf of the several animal welfare groups

Many Bahamian vets have "been doing it all along" and have been doing low or at cost spays for several Nassau based animal welfare organizations
Of course many persons cannot afford $50.00 to spay their family dog. Hence ARK, Proud Paws, BAARK, Pink Potcakes, Stray Busters, etc. Local vets have participated in these programs that have allowed indigent persons to access free spays and neuters.
Many Bahamian vets have assisted with spay/neuter projects in many Family Islands. More so in the past year than ever!

Many of our Nassau based veterinarians worked at some time or another for BHS. I do not think they hold BHS in disdain...I would say that there is a better working relationship between the vets and BHS today than there has ever been.
25 years ago many Bahamian vets were struggling to establish their practices against strong competition from BHS who charged ridiculous low
prices because they had the benefit of a wealthy President and a continuous flow of funds from fund raising activities.