It’s a rostered menagerie at Maniototo Hospital where, every Tuesday, Ranfurly veterinary nurse Barb Kearney brings in a different pet to visit hospital patients and residents at the facility’s rest-home.
Some weeks, she brings one of her own pets — she owns three dogs, three sheep, a pig, seven cats and an axolotl — and other times she "begs, borrow and steals" other people’s pets to bring in.
"I get really cheeky. Sometimes I see other animals and I go and ask can I borrow them to bring into the hospital."
There have been some adventures. She now only brings one pet at a time, after a previous visit with three lambs where one ended up chasing the other and the third one made a small deposit on the lap of a good-natured patient.
And she used to bring a pig, until the time it was "just so hot, and she got past the first door and then at the second one there must have been a little draught. She just lay down in the hallway and didn’t move for about two hours".
Barb has been visiting the rest-home chalet and hospital with pets for about six years. She started bringing either her black Labrador Tyson or her friend’s chihuahua Lacey on alternate weeks.
"Then one week there was this gorgeous little baby goat at work [the vet clinic] and I thought I’d bring that in. The response was amazing, people just loved it. It was so cute, and sparked so many stories and conversations."
Since then, she has gone out of her way to find different animals to bring in. Over the years, she has brought in cats, dogs, pigs, ponies, rats, parakeets, rabbits, guinea pigs, lambs and turtles (the pet axolotl stays in its water tank at home).
The response from patients, chalet residents, staff and hospital visitors was "amazing", she said. All the pets — visiting only those who wanted to be visited — brought significant emotional and physical benefits to those they visited. Pets in hospitals and rest-homes had been proven to lower blood pressure and stimulate the release of "feel good" endorphins. There were also poignant moments, when someone nearing the end of their life would ask to see a pet.
"There have been some beautiful moments."
Barb said she got "as much out of the visits" as the patients did, and the pets she brought in had some canine company.
The hospital’s nurse manager Jocelyn Johnstone’s pet dog Jill has become the unofficial hospital dog, quietly greeting visitors to the hospital and then returning to the nurse manager’s office to rest until the next visitor arrives. She is also often visited by patients, who walk down the hallway to see her.
Hospital manager Geoff Foster said the pets brought "tremendous" benefits to patients and everyone looked forward to the Tuesday visits. Barb was an "absolute treasure", he said.
