Friday Clinics

Morelia Montes is the go to person on Holbox when an animal needs help. She was our community contact and organized the clinics here in Mexico. She spent many hours explaining the need for spay neuter to the local communities and recruiting volunteers to help us. On Holbox without advertising she had 60 animals signed up for surgery. She asked for 5 teenagers to help at the clinics and got 45. These kids were organized to provide all types of support for us. They collected towels from the local hotels, made sandbags, trapped cats on Holbox, cleaned instruments during the clinic, and provided help in many ways. They seemed to enjoy helping and were very interested in what we were doing with the animals.

Friday morning May 17 we were scheduled to hold surgery in Holbox and Chiquila. Half of our group left for Chiquila on the 7 AM ferry. It was soon discovered that the only xylazine was in Chiquila. Luckily there is now cell phone service on the island and a phone call soon had some xylazine coming to Holbox. We set up our clinic in a small house on the main road from the port. The house served our needs well. Quarters were somewhat tight with 3 surgery tables but very adequate. We had a bathroom, a refrigerator and kitchen area for cleaning instrumants. Our patients were admitted and waited for surgery on the covered porch area. We had a number of dogs and cats waiting for us in the morning. Once we got started the day went very smooth. Morelia had arranged for fresh fruit and yogurt at 10 AM and there was a big cooler (provided by Tarpon Club) full of drinking water. At the end of the day we were treated to a delicious fish lunch at a local restaurant.

Thanks to a donation from Missy Young of Animal Talk Rescue we brought down and left on the island 10 cat traps. The kids trapped and brought us cats all day. They were so excited when they arrived at the clinic with the cats. We were able to alter all animals presented. We altered 46 on Holbox Friday.

The group that went to Chiquila had a much different experience. They were in a school building that was quite large but needed quite a bit of set up. I will try to get someone from the Chiquila group to outline the day. 33 animals were altered in Chiquila.
​
I was very pleased with how the first day of clinics ran. Our animals all recovered well and went home without apparent issues. The caretakers were very thankful for our services.

---