Wagga Vet pride ourselves on careful and complete care for all of our patients and clients. We are grateful that we get to see so many all of our small animal clients in person, but know that it is a lot more complicated with large animals and stock.

Recently, it has become more necessary for us to have a documented relationship with all large animal owners, and familiarity with stock and property, in order to dispense medication.

Please see the below letter to our valued large animal Clients explaining the requirements.

Supply of Prescription Medications

Dear Valued Client,

This letter is to notify our large animal and livestock clients about regulations that govern the way veterinary prescription medications can be dispensed to clients. These legislations are in place to protect Australian export markets, as well as to ensure optimal welfare standards for livestock.

The law stipulates that in order to dispense prescription medications, the veterinarian needs to have sufficient knowledge of the animal(s) which are to be treated. Importantly, the veterinarian must have recently performed a clinical examination of the animal(s).

These changes apply to any client with livestock which the veterinary clinic has not seen within a 12-month period, or for disease concerns that have not yet been overseen by a veterinarian.

Prescription medications include, but are not restricted to, the following veterinary medications:

• Antibiotics (eg. Penicillin, oxytetracycline)

• Intra-mammary preparations for mastitis

• Pinkeye ointments

• Ram sedation for shearing (acepromazine)

• Fertility & reproduction drugs

• Numnuts local anaesthetic (lignocaine)

To abide by this legislation, a Wagga Wagga Veterinary Hospital veterinarian must examine an animal within any 12-month period. We may request that a client coordinate a farm visit, or potentially present the livestock to the clinic in a trailer/utility (at the vets’ discretion), prior to dispensing. Our clinic has onsite yards, crush and loading ramp for use as required. Without establishing a bone fide relationship, the dispensing veterinarian leaves themselves vulnerable to scrutiny by the veterinary practitioner’s boards, and ultimately could lead to their deregistration. This is a risk we are no longer able to shoulder. When dispensing is required in a non-urgent manner, we will endeavour to organise a visit when we are next in your area.

Unfortunately, we will also no longer be able to dispense ram sedation under a stock and station letter. We have been advised that this letter does not verify a bone fide clinic-client relationship.

We see this as an opportunity to get on farm, examine your practices, and provide some constructive feedback to increase animal welfare and productivity.

A clause to these dispensing guidelines is, that if a government veterinarian has examined the stock requiring medications, then this can be dispensed under their requests as a one-off for that script.

If there are any queries or concerns regarding this matter, please call the clinic during office hours to speak to either Rebecca Brabin or Tristan Robinson. We understand that there may be some inconvenience associated with these adaptations and apologise for this in advance.

The full document pertaining to this legislation can be viewed at:
https://www.ava.com.au/library-resources/other-resources/prescribing-guidelines/

Regards,

Dr. Rebecca Brabin & Dr. Tristan Robinson