VN September 2023

Vetnuus | September 2023 16 The veterinary profession is compassionate. While this normally extends to animals and their owners, this is an inspiring and heart- warming story about two veterinarians who spent many years showing compassion for disabled children around the world. Mike and Helen Downey (nee Selfe), class of 1965 and 1967 respectively, are Onderstepoort graduates who were in private veterinary practice in South Africa until 1973 and Wales, UK until 1977. Mike and Helen’s second son, Aidan, was born in 1969 with Rubinstein Taybi , a rare genetic syndrome with severe learning and physical disabilities. When looking for help to improve Aidan’s development, they found that the United Kingdomprovided better facilities and support for dealing with children with such issues. The couple therefore sold their practice in Somerset West in 1973 and emigrated to Pembroke in Wales where Mike joined a private practice. At a specialist centre in the USA, Aidan was assessed and Mike and Helen were given a programme of mental and physical exercises that Aidan had to do at home for eight hours a day. The couple did this with Aidan, with help from volunteers from the village they lived in. Mike and Helen’s hands-on involvement with Aidan’s therapy played a large role in his showing significant progress. Because there were so few centres offering such opportunities to help brain-injured children, the couple thought about how they could improve the physical and mental well-being of other such children. To do this theymade a career change. In 1977 they left their practice and for the next 30 years, used their veterinary training not towards improving the lives of animals, but of people. As a start, they went to study at the Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. On their return, they established a clinic based in part on the Institute’s philosophy, in St. Briavels, Gloucestershire, UK. They named the clinic the St. Briavels Centre for Child Development which taught parents and their children with learning and other disabilities how to maximise each child’s physical, intellectual and physiological development and wellbeing. This was done by developing a structured programme of mental and physical exercises. They and their parents then returned two or three times a year to be re-assessed by the couple. In Helen’s words, “In veterinary training, you have to use your eyes, ears and hands to diagnose what the problem is, then provide the right course of treatment. We used the same skills when assessing a non-verbal child and developing a tailored development programme for each one.” Initially, it was British families who came to the clinic but gradually they started seeing parents and children from many countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Lebanon, South Africa and Senegal. The couple continued to work for the St. Briavels Centre until 2003 when they resigned to establish Brain Solutions, to provide a similar service but structured differently. In this case, they travelled extensively to provide services to parents of brain-injured children in Britain as well as other countries such as Ireland, Jersey, Norway, France, Austria, and Lebanon. In South Africa, they also ran workshops in peri-urban and rural areas where they taught carers of disabled children therapy techniques that they could perform at home. The couple retired in 2008 and continued to see a small number of children for a few years at home. After overcoming the initial difficulties of Aidan’s arrival, Mike and Helen made a career change where they would selflessly care for the well-being of disabled children and their parents. Mike and Helen firmly believe that they could never have achieved what they AVETERINARIAN’S COMPASSION HAS NO BOUNDARIES By Dr Vincent Turner Dr Mike and Helen Downey