New animal ambulance will benefit communities

The Department of Animal Health at the NWU Mafikeng has acquired a mobile veterinary clinic through the support of the Clinical Grant by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). The ambulance will benefit the surrounding communities to a large extent as veterinarians and their teams will now be able to perform minor surgery in the ambulance which is fully equipped to perform these tasks.

"The aim is to ensure that, through our successful outreach programme which has been going on and impacting on the surrounding communities, we empower our team of veterinarians and technicians as well as students to intervene if necessary on site instead of bringing back animals to the hospital," said Prof Mulunda Mwanza, Head of the Departmen of Animal Health.

The outreach project has impacted on improving communities around Mafikeng in a 30km radius on their farming and primary animal health care.

"Our students benefit through engaging farmers, which is one of their roles as technicians, as well as hands-on practical training. Farmers constitute our pool of training for final-year students," concluded Mwanza.

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