Midweek Musings 31. 8.07.2026

Urban Vet Care infra Part 2.

By Malini Shankar

Digital Discourse


In the six weeks since my two sub adult cats left mortal Earth, I have had time to ruminate over how to correct a flawed situation. Here are my few thoughts to create vet care infrastructure so that other pet parents and pet animals / livestock do not suffer as much. Vet care is a field that ought not to be neglected in smart city governance #SDGs

There is a need for publicly funded vet care infra:

1.       Veterinary health care centres very near to every residential suburb, every commercial complex, on every arterial road.

2.       Further, there is a need for a dedicated veterinary ambulance service on a dedicated road meant only for veterinary / human ambulances. This road must serve the needs of green corridor for emergency health care services for both Man and Beast.

3.       Animal shelters must be planned for emergencies like natural disasters, terrorist incidents, war, Pandemic etc. (Lessons learnt from COVID 19 era)

4.        Dedicated livestock health care hospitals / centres in every suburb, village, town, city, district, etc. Ambulance services for veterinary care, insurance centres for vet care, vaccination databases and dedicated vet care nursing service needed.

5.       Anti-venom dispending Primary health care centres must serve the needs of a maximum of 3000 citizens (of human population that is,) and must be located / sited every 5 square km area in urban or rural areas. Vet care infrastructure to cater to the needs of zoonotic disease (spread) mitigation is needed in the Day and Age of Climate Change.

6.       Bird flu preparedness necessary.

7.       Dog shelters are the need of the hour given Indians’ propensity to abandon domesticated, even pet dogs. Much more is the need for cat shelters. Not at all easy to spay cats. So the need for cat shelters is higher.

8.       Home visiting veterinarians attending to an emergency need to be given a green corridor. Some kind of coding enabled signalling system must prioritise veterinarians attending to an emergency outside hospitals – the home of the animal.   

9.       Vaccination and animal birth control drives will be easier with dog and cat shelters.

10.   Pet therapy centres maybe the latest fad but it’s a serious option for people living with mental health issues. This creates the need for animal psychology as a PG course. Such professionals will be in great demand then.

Pet creches for pet parents to drop off their furry kids when they are travelling. 

11.   Pet Cemeteries / Funeraries.

12.   High time there is a shelter for orphaned cattle, unattended grazing cattle that are let loose on the streets in cities. When municipal authorities round up the cattle which are a traffic hazard they do not know where to house them; and then communalist allegations are hurled at municipal authorities. But a humane and care filled response mechanism is the need of the hour.

You can read the first part of the article on Vet Care Infra on this link: https://neemree.blogspot.com/2026/05/midweek-musings-25-270526-urban-vet-care.html 


 Links:

https://www.workinganimals.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Veterinary-wish-list.pdf

https://pcvetcare.org/donate/wishlist/

https://www.wicvc.org/wishlist

https://form.jotform.com/252806180204146

https://www.cattales.org/get-involved/ways-give/veterinary-wish-list/

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