24 Sept 2021
Former members of the largest private online community for vets have accused Facebook group Veterinary Voices of becoming “really nasty” after a fracas over Geronimo the alpaca saw four members banned from the group.
Joshua Silverwood
Job Title
Image © apinan / Adobe Stock
The largest private online community for vets has been described as a “toxic echo chamber” after a number of members were banned from the platform.
Former members have accused Facebook group Veterinary Voices of becoming “really nasty” after a fracas over Geronimo the alpaca saw four members banned from the group.
The four former members were kicked out after an argument sparked by a video posted in the group of the alpaca being seized by police.
Now members from both sides are calling for civility after users made accusations of bullying and threats of legal action.
Vet and director of the Prion Group Iain McGill said: “Helen Macdonald had her pet alpaca seized by Defra, and these vets and vet nurses are attacking her. They think it’s her fault, they think she should be struck off.
“So, I politely suggested to them that they might want to consider removing these posts, otherwise I might want to get my lawyers and the RCVS involved, and that’s when I was blocked.
“They’re vile. Utterly vile, these comments. There were also comments suggesting that I wasn’t actually involved with Nowzad and that I hadn’t been on the plane.
“I just don’t tolerate abuse on the professional side. I won’t tolerate a vet nurse being abused by vets and vet nurses.”
Vet Voices is a private vet-only Facebook group, set up to give vets a space to voice concerns and talk behind closed doors. As with most Facebook groups, members are expected to adhere to a set of rules written by its administrators. Rule six of the Vet Voices group states that the admins may remove members or decline applications in the interest in preserving the community and its spirit.
The eighth rule of the group states that members must remain professional and refrain from swearing within the group.
Admin for the group and RCVS council member Danny Chambers said: “We’ve actually got rules, they have been up for years, and we enforce them quite vigorously. We rarely remove people, but we do quite often make a comment, or we delete a post or remove people for a week or something like that.
“Vet Voices is a community support group. Primarily to support mental health and that sort of thing really. It’s a bit like a staff room where you can come in and offload if you need it, and have a discussion not in front of clients.
“What we do want is to make sure that everyone writes stuff the RCVS would be happy with if it were to be made public.
“What we were really worried about is the fact these people protesting would just see a list of names in screenshots posted publicly, and because they might not be totally on board with saving this alpaca, they just may cause those individuals a huge amount of stress.”
Dr Chambers continued: “It’s very amusing that he [Iain McGill] would criticise people for their language. He keeps accusing Defra of lying repeatedly. You’re not supposed to disparage other veterinary surgeons in the code of conduct and he calls them liars.”
A statement posted to the group by Dr Chambers detailed how they felt members of the group had been threatened unfairly with legal action.
The statement reads: “As admins we are not only worried about the severe stress this would cause, but given the rhetoric of those who were making the threats, we were concerned for the well-being and safety of the VV members who were targeted.
“We took the decision to remove four people who overtly expressed solidarity and support with those who were making these threats towards Vet Voices members.”
A spokesman for veterinary mental welfare charity Vetlife said: “As a charity that provides support to those in the veterinary community, Vetlife always seeks to encourage well-being in any workplace or public environment, but cannot intervene in the activities of other organisations.
“We understand, however, that the reported reference to allegations of bullying on the independent Vet Voices platform has already been separately addressed by the administrators of that group in keeping with its published rules of membership.”
