Do Not Close the Veterinary Services Disease Surveillance and Post Mortem facility in Inverness

We have had reason to use this facility in the past. It would be a huge loss to us here in the north.

Complete lack of common sense

I work in Vet practice in Inverness and we use this service for owners who wish to have their pets post mortemed. It helps to give answers to grieving pet owners and quickly as it's a local service not to mention getting the cadavers quickly to the site.

Please please do not close the veterina

Risk of disease spread has to be thought about, transporting bodies to Thurso or Aberdeen or even Perth absolutely ridiculous

Essential for livestock producers in central Highlands and Islands

This service is essential monitor of our environment as PMs can reveal so much

Please do not close this much needed facility.

This is a vital resource and essential to monitoring and diagnosing disease in the Highlands and Islands. Closure would be both shortsighted and detrimental to this remote rural area. We cannot afford to lose such expertise whether working with livestock or wildlife. Please do not take this damaging step.

This is such a vital facility PLEASE DO NOT CLOSE

We need this lab in Inverness to keep disease surveillance as near to the west as possible

Closing Inverness's Veterinary Services Disease Surveillance and Post Mortem facility without a realistic and effective alternative provision for post mortem examinations is undoubtedly going to have a deleterious effect on animal health and welfare in the Highlands. The suggestion that busy GP vets can be expected to instantly develop and sustain the level of expertise of a full time pathologist is ludicrous, not to mention completely impractical, and is no real alternative to this valuable facility. Farmers will suffer, animals will suffer and the Highlands will lose out. The unit must remain in a suitable form to provide vital and uninterrupted facilities and expertise.

It's ridiculous to even contemplate closing such a vital facility - KEEP IT OPEN!

Please save this Vital service to rural communities, helps keep livestock healthy and ensures we get best prices at sale.

Please save this Vital service to rural communities, helps keep livestock healthy and ensures we get best prices at sale.

Highlands & Islands (including Moray) MSP, David Stewart, met this morning (29/6/15) with Clive Davey, of the Prospect Union, with regards the potential closure of the Inverness Disease Surveillance Centre at Drummond Hill. Speaking after the meeting David Stewart said “ I had a very good meeting with Clive Davey this morning to discuss the very serious implications if the Inverness Disease Surveillance Centre at Drummond Hill was to close”. “ This is the only facility of it’s kind in the Highlands & Islands that can carry out post mortem’s on large animal carcasses. The Centre’s reputation is second to none in it’s field. These are the people that are monitoring disease in the animal world to react to any emerging crisis. What we have at the Inverness facility are 15 highly motivated and committed staff most of whom would be made redundant if this issue is left unchallenged”. “ What it appears SRuC are suggesting is that a crofter from Skye should transport a dead cow carcass to Aberdeenshire or Perth for a post-mortem. How likely is that to happen? What is likely to happen is that the crofter will bury the carcass on their land and leave it at that. The outcome thereafter is that we lose the first class disease surveillance work carried out at Inverness and disease surveillance takes a backward step”. David Stewart continued John Kinnaird, author of the Kinnaird Review of Veterinary Surveillance, has called the plan ‘utter lunacy’. “I fundamentally oppose a planned closure of the Inverness DSC without having an alternative there” stated John Kinnaird. He went on to say “ Closing the Inverness site is utter lunacy and is nothing but setting Scotland’s disease surveillance backwards, not forwards”. David Stewart concluded “ If the man whose name graces the report being used to justify the shut down is saying this, then why are the SRuC not listening. I hear the quotes from SRuC representative saying they are consulting, but until I became involve

It is difficult to imagine how animal welfare and health will not suffer, as the loss of this facility must surely make it less likely that individual problems that farmers face are analysed, and lessons learned. It seems to contradict the current tendency of tightening up on controls and herd status now.

This unit provides an essential service and must not be closed.

As a supporter of the SMASS I do not support the closure of this facility.

This is a centre of excellence as a post mortem facility for marine mammals and for disease surveillance and must not be allowed to close.