When Caring Hurts: The Mental Health Emergency Facing Australia's Veterinarians

Shane Warren
Apr 26
2 min read

AWARENESS STATEMENT

WORLD VETERINARY DAY 2025

26 April 2025

When Caring Hurts: The Mental Health Emergency Facing Australia's Veterinarians

On World Veterinary Day, VMHPAA stands in solidarity with veterinary professionals across Australia and globally, acknowledging the profound mental health crisis confronting the field.

Recent reporting highlights disturbing realities: veterinarians remain among Australia’s highest-risk professions when it comes to suicide. Nearly 70% of vets report losing a colleague or classmate to suicide, a stark indicator of the severity of this crisis.

The origins of this crisis are tragically clear. Four years ago, Dr Sophie Putland took her own life under unbearable industry pressures and client abuse. Her legacy endures through Sophie’s Legacy, a charity led by her parents advocating for systemic change through safer workplaces, better mental health support, and respect for those caring for our animals.

Further data underscores the breadth and depth of the issue: female veterinarians are 3.5 times more likely, and males 2.1 times more likely to die by suicide compared to the general population. The contributing factors are multifaceted and relentless: long working hours, compassion fatigue, hostile client interactions (often spurred by financial stress), overwhelming student debt, and the emotional toll of euthanasia.

Yet solutions are emerging. The Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) is implementing a national Wellness Strategy and Suicide Prevention Framework, focused on promoting holistic wellbeing across one's entire career. Meanwhile, the Sophie’s Legacy campaigns, like We’re Only Human and Little Things, foster industry compassion, urging small acts of kindness to shift workplace culture.

As the national voice for vocational mental health practitioners, VMHPAA urges:

Recognition of veterinarians as a high-risk occupational group in workforce mental health strategies.
Equity of support, ensuring meaningful access to wellbeing resources, supervision, and peer networks.
Cultural change, encouraging kindness, respect, and community within veterinary workplaces.
System-wide wellbeing, targeting stress reduction from student entry to retirement, including fair training conditions, debt relief measures, and trauma-informed practice environments.