Zoo benefits from hospital donation

Torbay Hospital has donated a used ultrasound machine to Paignton Zoo.

Paignton Zoo Head of Veterinary Services Ghislaine Sayers said: “Ultrasound is a valuable imaging tool that helps us to diagnose certain types of soft tissue and organ disease including ligament damage and heart disease.”

It has already been used to diagnose a pregnancy in a sheep. Ghislaine again: “The big benefit for us is that it is portable. We could never have afforded to buy a new one for ourselves, so to have this one given to us is wonderful!

“Vets are not trained on this sort of equipment to the level that medical specialists achieve, but we can still tell a lot from using it.”

Zoo staff hope that in the future they will be able to train animals such as orang utans to sit and allow the ultrasound to be used on them.

Rosemary White, Directorate Manager for Radiology & Imaging at Torbay Hospital, added: “We are really thrilled to be able to donate this portable scanner to our local zoo. They do such a fantastic job with conservation, education and inspiring people to protect wildlife, so it’s great to be able to donate something that will make a real difference to their daily work.”

Emma Smith, Superintendent Advanced Practitioner at Torbay Hospital, added: “This equipment has been replaced with a newer model, but was a very useful piece of equipment, being so portable for bedside scanning at the hospital.”

Paignton Zoo Environmental Park is a registered charity. For more information go to www.paigntonzoo.org.uk or ring 0844 474 2222.