Chichester residents speaks out against Ukraine animal quarantine

Fiona Malloy, from Chichester, has spoken about her experience about trying to help a Ukrainian refugee come to the UK with her pet.

Fiona said: “Ultimately, I looked for a person to stay at my house and she does happen and I’d like to help her.

“Basically, its opened up a can of worms about this whole quarantine system works and its making it almost impossible for Ukrainians to bring their pets in.

“I’m not an expert at this and the lady (Alice Louka) that set up the process to find the petition and she’s a lot more savvy than me in terms of the wording.

“But what there are are listed countries, and none of this is ties to the animals and pets without rabies vaccines, it’s about getting the system to work properly.

“There are listed countries and unlisted countries, so as it happens, Russia is a listed country and Ukraine is not listed but some of the listed countries are some that have a high rabies possibility.

“The fact is, if you are in the EU and you get the injections, you have a 21 day wait, and then the animal has a blood test, then you can check to see if the rabies antibodies have kicked and then they get the EU passport and they can pop across the channel into the country with no problems.

“With the Ukrainian one, even though they have the very same injection and the have the very same blood test they can’t do that, they have to go into quarantine for up to four months once they get here and that’ll mean many people won’t come and it’s just too long.

“The Government have said they will pay for all this stuff but there is not enough room, everywhere is full up.

“So it’s a bit of farce really, because it practically cannot work and I do understand that we don’t want to bring rabies in to the country but the fact is that they are still having their injections and still getting their chips and getting their worming treatments and all those kind of things but they are having to wait a very long time and going through a very different process to someone having it done in Poland is having because they are in the EU.

A petition has been set up to make Ukraine an unrestricted country in terms of restrictions on people leaving the country with their pets.

Fiona added: “Ultimately the petition that was set up, I saw it on Facebook actually and then there was a zoom meeting last Friday which I joined. And I didn’t know this myself and I think that this is one of the biggest issues is people don’t know.

“I think whoever the powers may be, they re all not on the same page and I think that at the ned of the day this is the problem. The vets here, apparently they were supposed to have been sent messages to say they will help with home quarantine but I don’t think they’ve received the letter that were supposed to have been sent.

“So you can see it’s very confusing, and if they have to quarantine for four months then they just won’t come and its sort of a pointless thing to make this offer to people that wont come, even if they tried to come there wont be any room for “The worst thing, people with pets, will in effect, be better looking for places in the rest of Europe and not even consider the UK.”

To sign the petition visit: https://www.change.org/p/stop-separation-from-pets-in-uk-for-ukrainian-refugess-add-ukraine-as-uk-listed-country-for-pets-makeukrainealistedcountryforpets?recruiter=732624722&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_message&utm_medium=whatsapp&utm_content=washarecopy_32866056_en-GB%3A0&recruited_by_id=9f875c70-4ef2-11e7-a2d1-71620ef9e429&share_bandit_exp=message-32866056-en-GB

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