Cape Town – The South African Veterinary Association (Sava) has expressed concern over a decline in the number of vets in South Africa.
According to the SABC, Sava said that only about 150 students qualify every year from the University of Pretoria’s Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute and that it is the only institution in the country that offers a Bachelor of Veterinary Science degree.
Sava managing director Gert Steyn told the SABC that more than 60% of listed positions are still unfilled after a year, making it vital to get veterinary professionals back on the critical skills list.
“In terms of career opportunities, we saw from a survey we did amongst vets in South Africa that there are only around 3 500 registered vets. That doesn’t mean they are all in South Africa – some of them practise overseas – and we had 720 respondents to this questionnaire.
“Practices that are advertising for positions, even in urban areas 47% of those posts are still vacant after a year. In rural areas, it gets more difficult, 67% of posts are still vacant a year after being advertised,” says Steyn.
In 2022, the Health and Welfare Sector Education and Training Authority said it was closely looking at addressing a severe shortage of veterinarians and para-veterinary professionals.
The welfare sector said South Africa had around 60 to 70 per million residents when international norms recommend between 200 and 400 vets per millions of a country’s population.
The Health and Welfare Seta further said that it had launched a veterinary career guidance awareness programme in an attempt to address the skills shortage.
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