I’d arrived a couple of days previously, and this was my first day of surgery with the LSPCA charity – and to say it was a culture shock was an understatement. Operations in the UK are carried out in clean operating theatres with reliable anaesthetics and sterile instruments. Here, in the dusty village square of Chinzapo, an impoverished village on the outskirts of the capital city Lilongwe, there were none of these luxuries. The animals were knocked out using basic injectable drugs that provided unreliable and unpredictable anaesthesia, and the operations carried out on simple tables under a battered tent using surgical instruments that were very far from sterile. And when things went wrong, there were no emergency facilities to fall back on – just the combined experience of the vets on hand and a selection of largely out of date drugs.

Before being thrown in at the deep end at the neutering clinics, I’d first spent a couple of days seeing some of the other work that the charity does – and meeting the founders and trustees that keep the charity alive out there. First on my agenda was a visit to the Lilongwe wildlife centre which is where the concept of the LSPCA was born. This centre, which is based in a large expanse of sparse woodland near the centre of the city, was created by Lee Stewart, a British expat with a passion for wildlife conservation.

‘The centre’s all about rehabilitating wild animals rescued from captivity and releasing them back into the wild where possible’, Lee told me as he took me on a tour of the centre. It was amazing to see how much he’d achieved on a tiny budget in just a couple of years. Large enclosures held a variety of species, including a crocodile, various troops of monkeys, a hyena and Bella the one-eyed lion who’d been rescued from terrible conditions in an Eastern European zoo by Lee and his team. As we looked round the centre, Lee explained how the LSPCA had come into being.

‘Once I’d set up the wildlife centre, people kept asking me about problems with domestic animals – dogs, chickens and so on – and in the end I decided that there was a real need for an organisation to tackle some of the serious welfare issues that are going on here in Malawi. Luckily I knew someone at the RSPCA back at home, and she helped me set up the LSPCA – and the rest is history!’

With the help of the RSPCA’s international division, and a group of local trustees, the LSPCA was formed with the purpose of tackling a wide variety of animal welfare issues – and also, by association, help the local population as well, as so many of the domestic animal issues there are closely linked to human health and welfare issues.

After my visit to the wildlife centre, it was off on my first trip out to the community for an education day at an orphanage in a local village. Leaving the relative prosperity of Lilongwe and heading out along a dusty road into the impoverished townships that surround the capital was a real shock for me as I’d never witnessed rural Africa first hand. The large houses with lush gardens of the city gave way to shacks built of mud bricks and thatched roofs, and barefoot children dressed in ragged t-shirts waved and chased our pick up as we weaved through the village streets. Eventually we reached our destination – a collection of single story buildings with tin roofs that was the orphanage – and I jumped down from the back of the pick up to experience the amazing energy of excited local children for the first time. Smiling faces surrounded us immediately, with shouts of ‘Azungo’ (which means ‘white man’ in the local language), and a great jostling crowd of children wrapped themselves around us as we headed into the main hall for the education session. It was a little unnerving at first, but I soon realised that it was simple excitement and enthusiasm for our visit and quickly began to enjoy the experience and pick up the infectious energy of the children.

 The education session was run by Pauline and Clement, two locals employed by the charity, and they talked to the children about all manner of topics ranging from the value of domestic animals in their lives to the importance of treating them well and how to provide the essentials they need in terms of shelter and nutrition. Although the lesson was entirely in the local language, it was clear that the messages were well received and I could see how simple sessions like this could start to make a big impact on the future of the lives of animals in these communities.

After the classroom session, it was outside for games which helped to reinforce the lessons learnt indoors – and for me it was the chance to do some filming for a new series on the work of the RSPCA which was one of the reasons for my trip.

The next day was billed as a ‘farm animal clinic’ and I really didn’t have any idea what to expect. We left the capital early, perched on the back of a fully loaded pick-up truck, and bounced our way through the dirt streets until we reached our destination – a dusty patch of ground on the edge of a village. As soon as we arrived, a crowd of fascinated locals, mainly children, surrounded us and were our constant companions for the rest of the day, smiling and chattering as they watched us set up the clinic.

The clinic consisted of two tents, a small one for registration that was manned by Clement, one of the local LSPCA employees, and a larger one which served as the base for the vets and support staff. There were two other UK vets present, Jo and Kate, who’d travelled out to volunteer their services for the week, and the head vet of the LSPCA, a Ugandan called Richard Ssuno. Richard has been working for the LSPCA for several months, and really taken the charity forward, setting up these community clinics and working tirelessly with the government to integrate the LSPCA’s work into the work of the government veterinary and agriculture departments.

By the time the tents were up (a job that took the best part of an hour), a queue of locals and their animals had formed, and we were ready to start work. It quickly became evident that the majority of the people were clutching birds of various kinds – mainly chickens but also ducks and geese. Some had single birds, but many had several, and a few even brought in buckets full of chicks, or groups of chickens help together by their feet.

‘We’re vaccinating them against Newcastle disease,’ explained Richard, ‘it’s a devastating respiratory disease that can wipe out up to 80% of the birds in a village – and as they are such an important part of the diet and livelihood of the locals, an outbreak can devastate the people as well.’

The vaccination was administered using a simple drop of liquid into the eye, so we were able to treat hundreds of birds very quickly. And in addition to the Newcastle disease vaccination, we also treated them for parasites with a powder, and an injection against mites affecting their eyes.

As well as treating hundreds, if not thousands of birds, we also had a steady stream of dogs to vaccinate against rabies, and other animals including donkeys and goats for worming and general treatments. It was incredibly busy, dusty, hot and dirty work – but in many ways one of the most satisfying days veterinary work I’ve ever done. I really felt as though I’d made a big difference to so many animals and people, and it was well worth the hard work.

The last two days of my trip were the most demanding, as I helped out with their neutering clinics in another local village. There was the same intense interest from the local population, the same dirty, dust-blown village square and flimsy tent, but a very different feeling to the work that we were doing. Carrying out vaccinations and basic treatments in these kind of conditions is all very well, but undertaking surgical operations was a whole different matter.

The idea behind the neutering clinics is to help reduce the dog population, which is usually controlled by government marksmen shooting any dogs they see on the streets during annual culls. By neutering the dogs the LSPCA hopes to reduce the obvious welfare impact of these culls, as well as improving the wellbeing of the animals themselves.

By 9.30am Richard had the first 3 dogs knocked out, using a combination of injectable drugs that give anything up to 45 minutes of surgical anaesthesia. The dogs fell asleep on a dusty blanket, and were prepared for their operations by a local called Jacob (whose main role was to drive the pick-up!) Jacob scrubbed the surgical sites and shaved away the hair using a scalpel blade, and carried the dogs to the three operating table that were set up in the large tent. Here myself and the two other UK vets set out our instruments and set to work carrying out spaying and castration operations all day.

It was such a change from how things are done at home – no sterile surgical kits, no safe inhalation anaesthetics, and an audience of fascinated locals watching your every move! It took a while to get into the swing of things, but it wasn’t long before I was getting comfortable with the conditions and focussing on getting as many operations done as safely and quickly as possible. There were a few nervous moments when dogs woke up mid surgery, or there was dangerous bleeding that needed dealing with, but on the whole the two days of surgery went amazingly smoothly – and by the end of the second day we’d managed to neuter 70 animals – an amazing number given the fact that in the UK that number of operations would keep most practices busy for over a week!

The final surprise was seeing how the patients were taken home after their operations. With no cars, the main form of animal transport was the wheelbarrow, and it was so strange to see animals that had recently undergone major surgery being unceremoniously placed into a rusty barrow and wheeled off into the village!

Almost as soon as we packed up the last neutering clinic it was time to head home. It had been the most amazing week, and really opened my eyes to the fantastic work charities like the LSPCA do – and the immense need for the services they provide. Everything we did, from education to vaccinations and neutering made a real difference, not just to the animals but to the people and communities they live in, so for me, it was one of the most worthwhile week’s work of my life.

The society, which is staffed mainly by volunteers, works tirelessly in difficult conditions to bring veterinary care to animals that would otherwise be left with no access to medical care, and it’s not just the animals that benefit; through programs such as rabies vaccination schemes, the human population benefit massively as well as zoonotic diseases such as rabies are a major problem in many African societies.

As well as getting ready to vaccinate lots of animals out in Malawi, I’ve also been on the receiving end of quite a few needles myself over the last few weeks as I prepare for the trip. In addition to a course of 3 rabies injections, I’ve also needed vaccinations against hepatitis A, typhoid, tetanus, diphtheria, polio and meningitis (all of which has left  my upper arms looking like pin cushions!), along with a two week course of malaria tablets. It does make you think about how lucky not just our animals are in this country but how lucky we are as well, as that’s quite a list of disease that I’m being protected against that I’m sure the vast majority of the Malawian population have to face up to without the cover of vaccinations and prophylactic tablets.

Apart from getting my safari shorts out and stocking up on medicines from the surgery to take out with me, I’ve also been busy in my day job sorting out the sick and ill pets of the midlands with the Pet Vaccination Clinic practices. I’ve been in Nuneaton for the last couple of weeks which has been great, apart from the rather arduous 90 minute commute back and forth, and this week I’m off to the Birmingham suburb of Stetchford to work in their clinic there. And as well as working in the practices I’ve also been at the group head office as preparations continue to advance for the opening of my first practice with the group which should be ready in the next 4-6 months or so. It’s going to be quite a practice, based in an enormous glass fronted building, and I think it’s really going to take the veterinary world by storm, particularly in the town where we’re setting it up (which we’re keeping under wraps for now, but you’ll be amongst the first to know!)

And finally, in what has been a particularly busy week, even by my standards, I’ve been in talks with a production company who are putting together a new animal series for one of the major broadcasters, and hope to be presenting some features for the series which is due out later this year which will be great.