Powering Snow Vets
R.C.Mesley Animal Hospital
This new facility really does provide so much more capacity for us to care for the animals of the Monaro and Snowy Mountains better than ever before. Not only that, it aims to be a pleasant place to visit for all animal lovers, and a very positive landmark for visitors to the town at its Northern gateway.
The new, bespoke hospital itself has some design features to merge a sense of earthiness with the clinical requirements of a hospital. We have aimed to, as much as possible, make it an unintimidating and natural place for pets to visit. The reception area and consulting rooms will feature the rammed earth walls that have been the source of so many comments so far. If you’ve never seen rammed earth walls before, we encourage you to come and visit us, and just run your hands on them and feel their texture and presence. Our earth was sourced locally from a quarry in Bredbo – making the process relatively low in embodied energy. Double-glazed windows with unique German “tilt and turn” mechanisms allow us to be well protected from the elements, and thus very energy efficient, while still allowing us to get some natural air flow on milder days, and step outside to reach our beautiful natural surroundings from almost anywhere. Passive solar design will ensure that maximum solar heat gain happens in winter, minimising heating costs and again saving energy.
Heating in our cool climate will be achieved by hydronic coils of water in the concrete slab. The water will be heated by solar panels, as well as by a wood fire in the reception area, and then circulated through the floor. This provides the building with a generous, healthy and even warmth which is particularly crucial for our patients when in hospital or during general anaesthesia.
An ingenious new system, installed for us by a company called Ventis, will ensure an excellent circulation of air through the building, and filtration systems will ensure the air is dust, microbe and allergen free. This is of particular importance in our dedicated sterile surgery room; the positive pressure the system creates will ensure maximum sterility just as you will find in state of the art human surgical facilities. The Ventis system will also allow for better use of hot or cool air in the roof space, which can be released or recirculated under the control of thermostats – keeping us warmer in winter and cooler in summer.
Cats will be especially well catered for in our new home. The reception area has a designated cat zone (No Dogs Allowed!) where our feline friends can hopefully relax a little more. From here they head into their own, purpose equipped cat consulting room, where we can diffuse some feline pheromones to further improve their state of mind. We will do the same in the cats only ward of the hospital, where cats can rest easy in their light filled and sound proofed room - seeing, smelling and hearing only other cats.
Of course, our dogs are equally well catered for. Another two consulting rooms are available for our canine patients, and they too have their own sound proofed hospital ward (OK, the sound proofing is for our sanity in this case!) as well as a huge grassed outdoor area where they can spend time outdoors, walk, sniff and generally be merry.
Both cats and dogs in recovery from anaesthesia, or in intensive care, will be comfortable in our new, personally designed and installed heated hospital enclosures. With individually adjustable heating in each cage they are the Rolls Royce of veterinary cages – installed with the comfort of your pets in mind. Video cameras will be monitoring these cages, and are able to be viewed from any of the 10 computer screens around the building, or even on line, ensuring many eyes will be on our most unwell patients.
A dedicated X-ray Room is included in the plans to house our new, high end and very adaptable digital X-ray machine. The new machine vastly improves the quality of Xrays we can take, as well as allowing us to do lots of things we haven’t been able to do in the past. Most notably this will include taking good Xrays of teeth in cats and dogs (and other little pets too), but also to take great Xrays in horses as well.
Probably one of the greatest advances in our ability to serve your animals comes in the form of our new equine facilities. Horse owners in our region to date have not had access to many services that could potentially be very useful and well used. Our new purpose-built and designed stables have taken design tips from a number of equine and mixed practices around NSW. They allow us to hospitalise horses in stables, take good quality radiographs of horses’ limbs and teeth, do ultrasound reproductive work with mares as well as having facilities to do some routine procedures like minor surgery, geldings etc on site. We believe this is be a huge step forward for the horses and horse owners of our region.
Something we, the staff, love is that there is so much more space. This means a whole lot more moving, which isn’t a bad thing, but will also allow us to provide other services we haven’t been able to provide. We hope to be able to provide puppy preschool classes and client information nights in our new reception area. Our staff room will now be equipped with a sofa bed, so our dedicated vets and nurses will be able to spend the night in hospital with critically ill patients if required. Our pharmacy will be expanded in size so we can continue to provide you with the best in medical therapy, along with some space for further herbal and other complementary medicines. Three consulting rooms allow us to provide acupuncture and physiotherapy appointments more easily and comprehensively. A quiet space, dedicated to the purpose, will allow us to make your pet’s final moments more peaceful and comfortable. Finally, the vast amount of space all around us out there allows all of us to get outside more, tend to the gardens, walk on the lawns and enjoy a wonderful Monaro view down the valley towards the Tinderrys.
We hope that everyone might come and drop in to say hi some time, just to get a feel for the place and enjoy a walk around the grounds. There is nothing like a visit to a place, a walk on the grass, without a visit to the vet, to get your dog happier about their (hopefully not too regular) visits to see us.
Snowy Vets, in our various forms, have been providing an excellent level of veterinary service to the animals of our region for over 35 years, and the improvements have really accelerated in the recent past. We had outgrown our previoushome, and in building this new hospital, we consider it a reflection of our current extremely high standard of expertise and service, but also a demonstration of our aspirations for progress. We believe this hospital is one of the best of its kind anywhere in NSW, perhaps Australia. That is our aspiration for our standards of care and service as well.
The new, bespoke hospital itself has some design features to merge a sense of earthiness with the clinical requirements of a hospital. We have aimed to, as much as possible, make it an unintimidating and natural place for pets to visit. The reception area and consulting rooms will feature the rammed earth walls that have been the source of so many comments so far. If you’ve never seen rammed earth walls before, we encourage you to come and visit us, and just run your hands on them and feel their texture and presence. Our earth was sourced locally from a quarry in Bredbo – making the process relatively low in embodied energy. Double-glazed windows with unique German “tilt and turn” mechanisms allow us to be well protected from the elements, and thus very energy efficient, while still allowing us to get some natural air flow on milder days, and step outside to reach our beautiful natural surroundings from almost anywhere. Passive solar design will ensure that maximum solar heat gain happens in winter, minimising heating costs and again saving energy.
Heating in our cool climate will be achieved by hydronic coils of water in the concrete slab. The water will be heated by solar panels, as well as by a wood fire in the reception area, and then circulated through the floor. This provides the building with a generous, healthy and even warmth which is particularly crucial for our patients when in hospital or during general anaesthesia.
An ingenious new system, installed for us by a company called Ventis, will ensure an excellent circulation of air through the building, and filtration systems will ensure the air is dust, microbe and allergen free. This is of particular importance in our dedicated sterile surgery room; the positive pressure the system creates will ensure maximum sterility just as you will find in state of the art human surgical facilities. The Ventis system will also allow for better use of hot or cool air in the roof space, which can be released or recirculated under the control of thermostats – keeping us warmer in winter and cooler in summer.
Cats will be especially well catered for in our new home. The reception area has a designated cat zone (No Dogs Allowed!) where our feline friends can hopefully relax a little more. From here they head into their own, purpose equipped cat consulting room, where we can diffuse some feline pheromones to further improve their state of mind. We will do the same in the cats only ward of the hospital, where cats can rest easy in their light filled and sound proofed room - seeing, smelling and hearing only other cats.
Of course, our dogs are equally well catered for. Another two consulting rooms are available for our canine patients, and they too have their own sound proofed hospital ward (OK, the sound proofing is for our sanity in this case!) as well as a huge grassed outdoor area where they can spend time outdoors, walk, sniff and generally be merry.
Both cats and dogs in recovery from anaesthesia, or in intensive care, will be comfortable in our new, personally designed and installed heated hospital enclosures. With individually adjustable heating in each cage they are the Rolls Royce of veterinary cages – installed with the comfort of your pets in mind. Video cameras will be monitoring these cages, and are able to be viewed from any of the 10 computer screens around the building, or even on line, ensuring many eyes will be on our most unwell patients.
A dedicated X-ray Room is included in the plans to house our new, high end and very adaptable digital X-ray machine. The new machine vastly improves the quality of Xrays we can take, as well as allowing us to do lots of things we haven’t been able to do in the past. Most notably this will include taking good Xrays of teeth in cats and dogs (and other little pets too), but also to take great Xrays in horses as well.
Probably one of the greatest advances in our ability to serve your animals comes in the form of our new equine facilities. Horse owners in our region to date have not had access to many services that could potentially be very useful and well used. Our new purpose-built and designed stables have taken design tips from a number of equine and mixed practices around NSW. They allow us to hospitalise horses in stables, take good quality radiographs of horses’ limbs and teeth, do ultrasound reproductive work with mares as well as having facilities to do some routine procedures like minor surgery, geldings etc on site. We believe this is be a huge step forward for the horses and horse owners of our region.
Something we, the staff, love is that there is so much more space. This means a whole lot more moving, which isn’t a bad thing, but will also allow us to provide other services we haven’t been able to provide. We hope to be able to provide puppy preschool classes and client information nights in our new reception area. Our staff room will now be equipped with a sofa bed, so our dedicated vets and nurses will be able to spend the night in hospital with critically ill patients if required. Our pharmacy will be expanded in size so we can continue to provide you with the best in medical therapy, along with some space for further herbal and other complementary medicines. Three consulting rooms allow us to provide acupuncture and physiotherapy appointments more easily and comprehensively. A quiet space, dedicated to the purpose, will allow us to make your pet’s final moments more peaceful and comfortable. Finally, the vast amount of space all around us out there allows all of us to get outside more, tend to the gardens, walk on the lawns and enjoy a wonderful Monaro view down the valley towards the Tinderrys.
We hope that everyone might come and drop in to say hi some time, just to get a feel for the place and enjoy a walk around the grounds. There is nothing like a visit to a place, a walk on the grass, without a visit to the vet, to get your dog happier about their (hopefully not too regular) visits to see us.
Snowy Vets, in our various forms, have been providing an excellent level of veterinary service to the animals of our region for over 35 years, and the improvements have really accelerated in the recent past. We had outgrown our previoushome, and in building this new hospital, we consider it a reflection of our current extremely high standard of expertise and service, but also a demonstration of our aspirations for progress. We believe this hospital is one of the best of its kind anywhere in NSW, perhaps Australia. That is our aspiration for our standards of care and service as well.
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