Last November, Wildlife SOS celebrated the fifth anniversary of the inauguration of its Elephant Hospital in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. A pioneering facility in the realm of elephant welfare, five years on, the hospital stands strong on its unwavering commitment made towards healing elephants found in distress. With a skilled team of professionals and advanced apparatus, the Wildlife SOS Elephant Hospital has redefined the standards of elephant care globally.
Holly was the first elephant to receive medical care at the Elephant Hospital. A blind and injured begging elephant with septic wounds all over her body, when the team found her she was in great discomfort and suffering from osteoarthritis, as well as walking on thinning footpads. The Wildlife SOS veterinarians used laser therapy to soothe her pain, combined with hydrotherapy in the hospital’s hydraulic pool, to accelerate her healing.
Since Holly, nearly 20 elephants have been rescued and treated with the Elephant Hospital’s state-of-the-art amenities. The facility sits in 50 acres and has a digital weighing scale for accurate health assessments, diagnostic equipment such as thermal imaging and ultrasonic massagers, and an in-house pathology lab so the team can detect diseases at an early stage.
The hospital is designed to impart specialised care to geriatric elephants, as the majority of its patients have spent a lifetime walking on concrete and tarmac roads as begging elephants, temple elephants or as riders in the tourism industry.
The staff don’t just focus on the physical healing however, they also acknowledge the emotional intelligence of elephants and provide structural and food-based enrichments, pool time, dust and mud baths, and daily walks to exercise these beautiful creatures’ bodies and refresh their minds.
Five years on, Wildlife SOS has created a path for the well-being of distressed elephants but, says the charity, there is still a long way to go to promote sensitive care to these majestic animals.
by net effect