A Staten Island veterinary clinic was able to give financially insecure pet owners basic but necessary services for one weekend in June.
Financially overburdened pet owners got a break recently, when Staten Island hosted a free veterinary clinic.
The event was spearheaded by Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, and was the fourth free veterinary service since March. The clinic offered pet owners free blood work, medications and vaccines. Although the rebuilding of the East Coast post Hurricane Sandy is well underway, a great many residents are still displaced from their homes due to the fact that the necessary repairs were quite extensive. The financial strain was such for many pet owners that they often had no choice but to turn their pets over to shelters, even if the pets were a part of the family for years. The free veterinary event offers a welcome and popular service for severely burdened pet owners.
Veterinary services from all over the region participated in the event. The Richmond Valley Veterinary Practice, the Complete Care Veterinary Center, the New York City Veterinary Emergency Response Team and the Northside Animal Hospital were all on hand to provide basic animal medical services.
The Superstorm has bonded all levels of the animal-loving community. Animal rescue organizations, even though they were stretched nearly to breaking point with regard to staff, supplies and resources, were nonetheless able to use social networking to reunite pets with their families.
Even though east coasters are doing their best to recover from the destruction of Hurricane Sandy, animal welfare and rescue groups still need all of the help and support they can get. Shelters are still heavily overburdened and relying upon organizations from different regions to cope with some of the exceedingly high number of animals needing to be housed. Fortunately, animal welfare organizations from all over the country pitch in to help, transporting animals to their facilities out of state and finding suitable homes. The Helen Woodward Animal Center took in many of the orphaned pets after they were transported to the center by a plane chartered by the President of Sea World San Diego with the cooperation from Southwest Airlines.
Those of us who love animals can only hope that the animal shelters and pet owners in need receive the necessary assistance. The veterinary events will hopefully continue, since the pet owners seem to be very enthusiastic about the service. With all of the families that have had their entire lives uprooted, it is just heart breaking that so many now find themselves in circumstances that require them to say goodbye to a treasured pet that, in more instances than not, is like a member of the family.