College of VetMed now operates own Veterinary Teaching Hospital

A two-storey Veterinary Teaching Hospital (VTH) is operating at the Visayas State University to provide quality health care and medical services to our pets and farm animals.

Situated just beside the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) building, VTH is one of the new infrastructure projects of the university that was soft-launched last year on November 29, 2022. The VSU Board of Regents under the Resolution No. 17 s. 2019 approved CVM to operate a vet teaching hospital.

Following that, it was registered with the Department of Agriculture - Bureau of Animal Industry (DA-BAI) and given the license to operate on December 6, 2022, after undergoing an accreditation process.

VSU CVM wanted to produce highly qualified veterinarians who are equipped with high-quality clinical training. Aside from the standard educational training that the college has offered for the past years, hospital-based exposure will truly enhance the learning experience and develop the skills needed by veterinary students to become competent veterinary clinicians in the field.

The rise of the VTH is a promising avenue to provide excellent training to VetMed Viscans as well as give veterinary services that the VSU community and the whole Eastern Visayas region need.

VTH is open on an appointment basis except for emergencies. The concurrent VTH Director is Dr. Shebelle A. Cueva, with Dr. Nneka Mailee C. De Los Reyer as the resident veterinarian and the CVM faculty members also as veterinarians of the hospital.

The vet hospital has vaccination and consultation rooms, a laboratory room, large animal and small animal surgery rooms, a diagnostic imaging room, confinement wards, a nutrition services room, and a doctor's lounge.

Since it is still very new, the whole building was not fully-utilized, especially the rooms in the second level. However, the VTH has offered several services now to the community such as general veterinary practices, clinical pathology and diagnostic services, surgical services, and specialized services in collaboration with the CVM Diagnostic Laboratory, Microbiology Laboratory, and Semen Laboratory.

Among its veterinary services include vaccinations, deworming, emergency, and non-emergency consultations; complete blood count, stool examination, urinalysis, ultrasound examination, skin scrapings, trichogram, and breeding soundness examination; castration, ovariohysterectomy, tumor removal, and other elective surgeries.

According to Dr. Cueva, as of now, they are still waiting for the arrival of the new equipment they procured and the additional budget for other needed materials for the new facility.

VTH is welcome to accept clients not only from VSU but also from other communities that need its service. Last May of this year, Dr. Cueva shared that it was the peak month because they attended to the highest number of patients since its operation.

“We usually have clients from VSU and some coming from Baybay or even from Albuera. And just last May, we catered to more than two patients per day in the hospital,” she shared.

Recently, Dr. Cueva, through the Erasmus+ Mobility Program was able to benchmark one of the best veterinary teaching hospitals in Croatia, Europe, and experienced how they manage a university-based hospital for animals.

On top of that, the Dean of CVM Dr. Santiago Peña, Jr. has a project that is funded by the Department of Science and Technology through the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic, and Natural Resources Research and Development (DOST-PCAARRD) on the establishment of first-ever boar semen laboratory application and biotechnology at the university. This new laboratory will be an advanced facility to improve the pig industry in the region following the big economic loss due to the African swine fever epidemic that hampered Eastern Visayas in 2021.

Soon, this VSU VTH will become a premier veterinary hospital that will help in realizing the vision of CVM in ensuring and improving the welfare of animals and the people, not only in Baybay City but in the whole region as well.

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