Charlie
, a gorgeous golden-haired Labrador Retriever, dozes on a blanket in a waiting room with dozens of dogs and cats in São Paulo.
In truth, he had never been this sick.
First he was the rash on the muzzle.
Lupus, the vet suspected, and recommended a biopsy several days ago.
Kelly Queiroz, 31, paid for that private consultation with her pet, but doing the test was impossible: "It was 200 reais," she says.
In other words, 36 euros, 40 dollars.
She couldn't afford it.
Too much money, so this Brazilian decided to wait, to see if the dog got better.
But no, she made her worse.
"He stopped eating, his legs swelled up," says Queiroz.
Distraught, she took out dog insurance, but it turns out that at first she only covers emergencies.
and
Charlie
it was bad, but not that serious.
It was a co-worker at the museum where she works the reception who told her about this free public veterinary hospital.
She surprise and relief.
And here he is, in line for
Charlie
to have an ultrasound and an IV at the Northern São Paulo Municipal Veterinary Hospital.
The dog has just had blood drawn, he has an appointment to see the dermatologist, but he still has no definitive diagnosis.
“Just knowing that it is not serious, I am more relieved.
And the peace of mind that he receives treatment without juggling impossible to pay for.
Dr. Giulia has treated him wonderfully….
I have even cried ”, she said excitedly this past Wednesday.
Ten hours earlier, at midnight, she got in line with
Charlie
and a blanket.
The demand is enormous, so being served requires patience, which deters those who can afford private.
Low-income residents, those who cannot afford a clinic in the richest and most populous city in Latin America, are the priority users of the four veterinary hospitals of the São Paulo City Council, a city where 12 million residents live with 1.9 million of dogs and more than 800,000 cats, figures that will increase in the census that is about to come out of the oven.
The dog 'Mili', during a chemotherapy session at a public veterinary hospital in São Paulo last Wednesday. Lela Beltrão
It is a free municipal service with a truly impressive range of specialties, from ophthalmology to orthopedics, dentistry or oncology.
In these corridors, a dog with an amputated leg, another suffering from diabetes, a cat undergoing cancer treatment, and an army of young veterinarians and nurses in uniforms and colored bandanas cross paths.
The place is sober, without luxuries, but with an intensive care unit and three operating rooms.
In the ICU, a nurse lovingly rocks and syringe feeds Mika
,
a 45-day-old kitten with neonatal feline triad.
Right there they take
Tom
's blood pressure , a brave cat with spectacular eyes who suffers from a urethral obstruction and is plugged into a probe.
This unit alone has about 30 veterinarians and a dozen nurses.
Dr. Daniel Leite da Silva directs the network of veterinary hospitals of the São Paulo City Council.
Why does a city decide to dedicate public money to this end?
Well, he explains, because it creates a virtuous circle for animals and those who live with them: "We avoid abandonment, it allows us to maintain epidemiological surveillance to avoid zoonoses, diseases that jump from animals to humans, and we help take care of health emotional care of the tutor, who manages to take care of the well-being of his pet”.
Veterinary nurse Bibi Perigosa cares for a patient, last Wednesday, at a municipal hospital for dogs and cats in São Paulo. Lela Beltrão
With a team of 145 veterinarians and almost a hundred assistants, last year they attended 130,000 services between the four hospitals.
The budget for this year is around 27 million reais (4.8 million euros, 5.3 million dollars).
The experience of São Paulo, which opened its first municipal veterinary hospital in 2012, is consolidated and has inspired cities such as Brasília, Salvador de Bahía or Guarulhos.
There are similar centers in Mexico and Argentina;
and El Salvador has just inaugurated one.
Brazilian users are surprised to learn that there are none in rich Europe.
As Micaela de la Maza, creator of srperro.com, a website about the canine universe, explains, “in Europe they do not exist, at the end of 2022 the first public hospital in Rome was announced.
That announcement made a lot of media noise and the issue has even entered the Spanish electoral campaign.
Both in Brazil and in much of the richer world, pets are moving from being considered property to becoming members of the family.
It is the humanization of dogs and cats.
Dr. Da Silva draws attention to how this change is reflected even in terminology: "When I entered college, in 2003, we called them owners or owners, then tutors or managers, and now some are called bichological mothers and fathers [in a pun with
bicho
, animal in Portuguese]”.
He, like all the veterinarians and nurses consulted at the center, lives with pets.
In his case, two cats and a dog, a thousand milks.
Adoption and surgical castration programs are other legs of his work.
"There is no indiscriminate euthanasia here," he points out.
Two veterinary surgeons intervene on an animal in one of the three operating rooms of the North Municipal Veterinary Hospital of São Paulo, last Wednesday. Lela Beltrão
Free veterinary care can also be understood as a mitigator of inequality in Brazil, a country that prides itself on having created the largest public health system for humans on the planet (neither the US, nor China nor India have anything similar), but where the gap between rich and poor is still huge.
And, of course, it has its reflection in the canine universe.
Because São Paulo is a city where tens of thousands of people live on the streets while the most powerful executives avoid traffic jams by taking an air taxi.
The
homeless
in the megalopolis can take their dogs to the vet for free through social services while the wealthiest, when they go on a trip, leave their dogs in five-star hotels with swimming pools and saunas.
The city is dotted with gigantic stores open 24 hours a day that sell everything imaginable to feed, care for and spoil the animal;
day care centers have cameras to monitor the pet from work or the gym;
and walking her in a baby carriage or leaving her in the hands of a
dog walker
is an everyday thing in privileged neighborhoods.
In the hospital waiting room you don't hear a bark, if anything, a moan.
These professionals manage to operate on spinal fractures, but in general they provide services of low and medium complexity.
Nor do they have the latest technology.
As chief veterinarian Da Silva says, who compares his resources with what he saw on his visit to the University of Florida Veterinary Hospital, "there the care is for those who can pay for it, here we seek to reach the most wide as possible."
In a flash he does the math: "With what a CT scan costs, we do five X-rays."
The cat 'Mica', who is 45 days old, is fed by a nurse in the intensive care unit of a public veterinary hospital in São Paulo, last Wednesday.
Lela Beltrão
Teo
, the cat of Maria Zuleni dos Santos, a bakery clerk, is 11 years old and has bowel cancer.
Formal, he waits for the oncologist in her carrier.
Zyon
awaits the general practitioner.
"Prince, tell mom something," Adriana Costa encourages her poodle, who stopped eating and almost drinking before the May Day weekend.
Costa and her partner come because a couple of days of hospitalization in a clinic has made a hole of 90 euros and each consultation is 36, an impossible rate with her salary as a cleaner in an outpatient clinic.
While she chats, she keeps an eye on the announcements.
As soon as she hears the nurse call out loud and clear “
Adriana's
Zyon , you can come in, Adriana's
Zyon
…”, she will carry him into the consultation room.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I'm already a subscriber