Familiar face returns as Vet shortage bites
Shortage of vets across the far west has seen the return of an old hand and familiar face in Bourke.
Scott Parry was well-known when he and his wife Kylie ran Northwest Vets for many years in Walgett, Lightning Ridge, and Coonamble.
Scott sold the business last year and is now semi-retired, but he has remained busy, working for the new owners as well as doing vet work in the East Kimberleys and the Northern territory.
Now, the critical shortage of vets has seen him take on the role of contract vet for Western Local Land Services and a return to his old stamping ground.
“I’ve been poking around the western country for more than 20 years as a vet and doing pastoral work, so I know the area around Bourke, Brewarrina, Walgett, Lightning Ridge and Coonamble pretty well,” he said.
“I’ve been doing a bit of contracting around the region and across Australia and spent two months in the Kimberleys and the Gulf country and ran into another Bourke local - Steve Buster, who is growing cotton up there, so I enjoyed having a bit of a yarn to him.
“I’m back in the sunny western NSW country again, doing three days a week as a contract vet for Western Local Land Service.
“The shortage of vets is Australia-wide, but to be fair not, it’s not just vets - it’s doctors, dentists, baristas, you name it.
“There has been a seismic change in the workforce, especially in remote regions, but even in cities, industries are struggling to get bodies to fill the trenches.
“The vet industry is struggling for numbers across the board and there are very few of us left. Things must be hard if they’re relying on a broken-down bald-headed bloke like me,” Scott said. […]
Read more in the printed edition of The Western Herald.
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