On July 22, 2017, the disease - which can have serious effects on cattle - was confirmed in New Zealand, triggering the country’s largest and most expensive biosecurity response.
An earlier study, released in 2021 by the same research team, which looked at the psychosocial impact of M. bovis on rural communities in the South, revealed the enduring emotional cost of a "badly planned and poorly executed process", which left farming families feeling isolated, bewildered and powerless.
The latest paper, on the moral distress in rural veterinarians as an outcome of the incursion, has been published in the New Zealand Veterinary Journal.
The research was done by Dr Fiona Doolan-Noble, Dr Geoff Noller and Associate Prof Chrys Jaye, of the University of Otago’s department of general practice and rural health, and Southland veterinarian Mark Bryan.
They said moral distress was demonstrated physically during interviews, with emotional responses including weeping.
The study said participating vets observed both human and animal suffering related not to the disease itself, but to the management of the incursion.
In terms of human suffering, that was associated with the mental stress experienced by their clients who were impacted by M. bovis.
The Ministry for Primary Industries has previously said the eradication programme had been through significant reviews and, with what had been learnt along the way, substantial improvements had been made.
The aim was to lessen the impact on affected farmers as much as possible, while work was done to eradicate the disease.
As of February 16, there were five active confirmed properties in New Zealand, all in Canterbury.
The veterinarian study said vets were potentially key stakeholders in supporting the management of the response, through their local relationships, understanding and resources.
Eradication programmes for exotic diseases in production animals inevitably had an impact on rural vets in their role working closely with farmers.
Potentially those impacts could be positive, recognising and utilising vets’ experience, skills and knowledge base. But the study illustrated the "significant negative impacts" for some vets exposed to the programme.
Psychological stress associated with the incursion resulted from having their knowledge either considered irrelevant or, potentially, ignored; having to witness the adverse treatment of both their human clients and their animal patients; or having to expand their roles and experiencing the ingress of their roles into other aspects of their lives.
Despite having the knowledge to meaningfully contribute to the management of the incursion, both locally and occasionally nationally, participating vets described being unjustifiably marginalised as "a group of knowers".
A key area of exclusion related to MPI not informing clients’ own vets about their animals’ disease status, or the necessary actions required in relation to the animals, or providing the information they sought about test results.
It was impossible to manage in a crisis without information, and because the vets described being purposefully excluded from knowing the test results of their clients’ cattle, they felt unable to appropriately support their clients, the study said.
The vets reported having access to disease data processes, resources, skills and knowledge that could have contributed to and benefited the response to the incursion in multiple ways - adding value to the national eradication programme and to the farmers affected, but reported their offers of help were not actioned. Communicating with MPI’s national office was also described as stressful.
Particularly frustrating was the difficulty in alignment between the farming calendar and practices in eradication programme processes.
People had no idea of the industry, including when calves were weaned, when cows were dried off and the gestation period of a cow.
Participants described how M. bovis took over their lives; local vets were being used by farmers as sources of knowledge and they were providing knowledge and support as best they could.
Meeting those needs added to participants already heavy clinical workload.
Attending to the needs of MPI, farmers and stock took an enormous toll on their personal lives.
During the incursion, they found themselves more frequently undertaking roles and functions well beyond their veterinarian role.
Participants spoke of assisting farmers with form filling and report writing, lending themselves as a sympathetic ear and being a support person; a knowledge-gap "filler" as well as a counsellor.
The culmination of those experiences amplified feelings of moral distress and left vets with lingering feelings of anxiety about the future.
While vets often witnessed suffering in their normal roles, the occurrence and intensity of human and animal hardship witnessed during the incursion response was "difficult to bear".
To the knowledge of the researchers, the study was the first from New Zealand to report the experiences of rural clinical vets impacted by an exotic disease incursion response.
There was a need to consider how the system addressed future exotic disease incursions to better incorporate and utilise the knowledge and skills of the expert workforce of rural vets and to minimise the negative impacts on them.
In the future it was hoped the situated knowledge and skills of vets would be better used to the benefit of all.
