a day ago
Vets on wheels: Can Jakarta's new service address animal care challenges faced by city, pet owners?
JAKARTA: When Lusiana discovered that a free rabies vaccination event was being held at a cultural centre about a kilometre from her home, the East Jakarta resident was excited.
Her cat, Bono, had been vomiting and acting lethargic for days and the 74-year-old widow was hoping that the veterinarians present at the event might provide some answers.
The private animal clinics near her home are too expensive while Jakarta's only government-run clinic, located some 28km away on the other side of the city, is too far for the ageing retiree.
'It would have taken me one-and-a-half hours one way to get to the (government-run) clinic by bus. In fact, it's so far away I'm not even sure which bus I should take to get there,' Lusiana, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told CNA.
Located near the city's southern limit, the Jakarta Animal Health Centre is the only place in the sprawling metropolis of 11 million inhabitants which provides subsidised healthcare for animals and thus holds special importance for pet owners like Lusiana.
Prices at privately-run clinics can be two to four times more expensive than at the health centre.
For example, the health centre charges 70,000 rupiah (US$4) for every health consultation session while private ones typically charge between 150,000 and 250,000 rupiah per session.
Meanwhile, male neutering costs between 200,000 and 350,000 rupiah at the health centre, depending on the size of the animal, while prices at private clinics vary between 400,000 and 1 million rupiah.
To compensate for the centre's remoteness, the city has been staging outreach programmes where veterinarians and city officials visit one Jakarta community after the other, including the rabies event which Lusiana attended on Jun 10.
But these programmes are held only once or twice every month. Since veterinarians can only carry a limited amount of equipment, the events are often limited to simple procedures such as vaccinations and sterilisations, as Lusiana found out the hard way.
'The vets suspected that my cat might have parasites but they can't be sure without performing a blood test. And to do that I need to take my cat to the (government-run) clinic,' she said.
As residents in the Indonesian capital struggle with the lack of places where owners can get affordable healthcare for their pets, authorities have come up with a potential solution. Starting next year, Jakarta will have six mobile veterinary services vehicles.
These travelling animal clinics, modelled after an existing initiative in neighbouring West Java, aim to be a game-changer for veterinarians, animal owners and their pets.
Hasudungan Sidabalok, chief of the Jakarta Food Security, Maritime and Agriculture Agency, which oversees all animal affairs in the Indonesian capital, acknowledged that the city-run animal clinic is too far for many residents.
'We are planning to build an animal clinic in each of Jakarta's (five) municipalities. But the process of building one is long as there need to be studies, for example, of how accessible a location is to people in that municipality and so on,' Hasudungan told CNA.
'So the most feasible and quickest solution is to set up mobile veterinary service units.'
Hasudungan said Jakarta plans to acquire between six and 12 vans and convert them into animal clinics on wheels. These mobile veterinary vehicles are expected to roam the streets of Jakarta next year.
'There will definitely be six (vehicles), but if there is enough budget, we can increase the number to 12 because people's demand for such services is quite high,' the agency chief said.
Each vehicle, he continued, will cost around 2 billion rupiah and come equipped with a mini operating table, an x-ray machine and a blood sample analyser.
The city is planning to recruit at least 12 veterinarians and 12 paramedics for the programme. It is not yet clear how much its operational costs will be.
ANOTHER GAME CHANGER?
The planned service is modelled after a similar programme in Jakarta's neighbouring province of West Java. Since 2022, West Java has been operating two mobile veterinary vehicles, providing healthcare to every corner of the 35,000sq km province.
Animal rights advocate turned politician Francine Widjojo said she was envious at how the West Java programme was able to provide diverse medical services to animals in far corners of the province.
When Francine was sworn in as a member of the Jakarta city council last August, she immediately got to work to bring the service to the Indonesian capital.
'Jakarta has free sterilisation and free rabies vaccination programmes but each municipality can only perform them once or twice a month because it can be hard to find suitable locations for these activities,' Francine said.
'If Jakarta has its own mobile veterinarian vehicles, we can stage such events more frequently and offer more medical services.'
Irawati Artharini, a Jakarta government official who has overseen numerous sterilisation and vaccination drives echoed the sentiment.
'Sometimes we have to postpone sterilising an animal because the animal is sick or unwell, especially feral cats which are brought in by animal welfare groups or caught by locals. When that happens, the vets couldn't do much because we didn't have the right equipment,' she said.
In West Java, the veterinary vehicles have been a game changer.
Yoni Sugiri, head of the West Java Animal Hospital, said although the province has government-run animal clinics in almost every major town and city, not all have the equipment or medical professionals skilled enough to perform complicated tests or medical procedures.
As a result, hospital workers are often invited to farms, slaughterhouses and markets in remote areas of West Java, dozens of kilometres away from the hilly outskirts of the provincial capital, Bandung, where the hospital is located.
'Even if we conduct outreach sessions, lab tests and seriously ill patients still need to be taken to our hospital,' Yoni told CNA.
The hospital came up with the idea of a mobile veterinary service in 2019 but it would take another three years to convince the West Java government to earmark the money needed for the programme.
'Since we have this mobile veterinary service, we are able to perform medical procedures anywhere, like blood tests, ultrasound (imaging) and stool sample tests. We can do almost anything except for major surgeries which require a sterile and specialised space,' said Yoni.
Before having its own veterinary vehicles, health workers could only travel once or twice a month to other parts of West Java. Today – with two units at its disposal – the hospital can dispatch two teams of veterinarians to different corners of the province every other day.
'I am very proud that other provinces are looking to replicate the programme, that this innovation which started in West Java is now being considered by other regions,' said Yoni.
CRUCIAL TOOL FOR DISEASE PREVENTION
Jakarta agency chief Hasudungan said details of how the vehicles will operate are still being ironed out.
One option is to have these vans stay at specific locations so people know where to look for them. But there are also suggestions that the vehicles should also travel from one place to the next to support the city's vaccination and sterilisation drives.
'Perhaps it will be a combination of these options,' Hasudungan said.
But running a mobile veterinary service is not without its challenges and downsides, as medical workers in West Java have discovered.
Because they need to travel from one place to the next, veterinarians and paramedics can sometimes spend more time on the road than providing medical services. The stress of navigating through traffic, the outdoor heat and the lack of comfortable places to rest can be physically taxing for medical workers.
The limited space also makes it difficult to examine and perform medical procedures to animals bigger than a small-sized dog.
This is why Jakarta is continuing efforts to build more animal clinics as well as upgrade the existing health centre into an animal hospital, Hasudungan the agency chief said.
The city is still searching for land in North, West, Central and East Jakarta for the brick-and-mortar clinics. Meanwhile new facilities, he said, are being built to upgrade the existing animal health centre.
'To become a hospital, the clinic must have a 24-hour emergency ward and veterinarians with special skills. We are working towards making the necessary upgrades and recruiting specialists to work in this future animal hospital,' the agency chief said, refusing to provide a timeline for these projects.
Meanwhile, city councillor Francine doubts that the new clinics will be ready anytime soon.
'Which is why Jakarta needs this mobile veterinary service, so pet owners can have better access to affordable healthcare for their animals as these new facilities are being built,' the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) politician said.
Francine said better access to veterinary services is crucial in preventing a host of health problems affecting both animals and humans.
'Jakarta is quite ahead in preventing (cases of) rabies because it routinely stages rabies vaccination drives. Efforts to prevent (rabies) have been pretty good but more can be done with the help of a mobile animal clinic,' she said, adding that the service could also help Jakarta's efforts to keep its cat population in check.
According to a 2024 estimate by the city government, Jakarta is home to 750,000 stray and 110,000 domesticated cats.
With cats capable of producing three to four litters of kittens a year, with an average of three to six kittens per litter, experts predict the figure could quadruple in the next five years, heightening the risk of disease transmission, human-animal conflicts and ecological imbalance.
In May, Jakarta governor Pramono Anung announced that the city government is considering populating one of the hundreds of islands off the coast of Jakarta with cats in an effort to manage their population and boost tourism.
'Animal health is closely related to human health. Throughout history, there have been many outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics which started out as animal-to-animal transmittable diseases, including COVID-19,' Francine said.
'This is why it is very important to keep animals healthy.'
