The specialist medicine service is primarily hospital-based. The aim of the service is to provide additional medical expertise to compliment the general practitioner’s service to their client.

Our specialists are available to assist referring veterinarians with their cases free of charge.

Witbos Veterinary Clinic provides an equine emergency and critical care service that makes use of state of the art diagnostic and monitoring equipment as well as video-surveillance to ensure patient well-being every second of every day. Hospitalised patients receive round the clock care, and every effort is made to accommodate all referrals. This service provides convenience to referring veterinarians, who do not have to repeatedly go out to serious or time-consuming cases. Horse owners can also have peace of mind in knowing that the person overseeing their horse’s case is a recognized specialist, when available. All emergency cases receive a comprehensive work-up (regardless of the time of day or night). Whenever a general practitioner is uncertain about a diagnosis or treatment, or when a patient requires intensive care, specialist referral should be considered. Early referral leads to early, appropriate diagnosis and treatment, which improves patient outcome and often ends up costing less than protracted disease or the loss of a patient

This service focuses on the prevention, identification and treatment of genetic and degenerative muscular and neurological diseases that can lead to poor performance or disease.

This service includes the identification and monitoring of high risk pregnancies and neonatal intensive care. Early, appropriate intervention in high risk pregnancies and/or sick neonates can lead to a decrease in parturition risk to the mare and improved neonatal outcome. Being able to monitor foetal growth and development through the use of ultrasound and ECG can also give some owners more peace of mind.

This service focuses on screening, early detection and appropriate management of any ailment that has the potential to cause a decrease in performance, cardiac or respiratory disease. It includes anything from determining whether a heart murmur detected at pre-purchase exam is likely to limit performance, to appropriate diagnosis and monitoring of serious or chronic respiratory disease, to improving the quality of life for a beloved patient in heart failure. The sports medicine service includes specialised lameness detection that may limit performance and provides palliative treatments such as shock wave therapy and IRAP to athletes for maintenance of optimal performance.

Recent advances in equine medical research and diagnostics allows us to detect the onset of endocrine and metabolic disease much earlier and more accurately in the horse. This allows us to prevent debilitating diseases such as laminitis in some of our patients.