Johannesburg Animal Eye Hospital

23/04/2025

🎉 Open Day Highlights – Thank You, Vets! 🐾
On 29 March, the JHB Animal Eye Hospital hosted its annual Open Day, welcoming general veterinary practitioners for a day of learning, hands-on experience, and collaboration.

Alongside insightful presentations from our team, vets had the chance to interact with our specialized ophthalmic equipment and discover practical tools they can apply in their own practices to enhance eye exams.

We were blown away by the incredible feedback – thank you for making the day such a success! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Here’s what some of our attendees had to say:

🗨️ "Excellent, informed vets… and practically relevant!"
🗨️ "Thank you for a very informative afternoon."
🗨️ "Excellent team of ophthalmologists. Thank you to JAEH for hosting a great Open Day! We’ll continue to support, recommend, and refer to your enthusiastic and energetic team."
🗨️ "Thanks! Learned so much."
🗨️ "Informative and much needed."

We’re so grateful to everyone who joined us – your support inspires us to keep raising the standard in veterinary ophthalmology! 👁️🐶🐱

03/12/2024

The spring rains have arrived and Gedoelstia is in the air!

Gedoelstia is a fly that starts hatching in early spring after the first rains. We have seen our first cases already. It naturally hosts in wild antelope but is regularly seen in early spring /summer affecting horses. The fly will lay its larvae on the conjunctiva of horses. This can result is severe pain as the small larvae with massive mouthparts burrow into the sensitive conjunctiva and cornea causing inflammation and large corneal ulcers. Affected horses need immediate attention and your veterinarian or the ophthalmologist at Jhb or Cape Animal Eye Hospital should be called if you suspect this problem. The larvae can be treated with specific fly repellent products and the eye needs to be managed with medication. Using good quality horse facemasks are essential.

15/11/2024

Recently we had an interesting patient. A very large Burmese python.
When snakes undergo their normal skin shedding [eccdysis] the “scale” over the cornea known as the spectacle should also slough off. In some cases, this may be retained and secondary infection occurs. This was the situation with this snake. After changing the housing humidity and application of topical lubricants we were able to, over a few weeks, surgically remove pieces of retained spectacle and retain healthy eyes.

11/09/2024

Congratulations to Drs Paul Burger and Brent Sirrals for attaining their Masters degree in Veterinary Ophthalmology [cum laude] and now being recognised as specialist ophthalmologists. We now have four ophthalmologists between our Johannesburg and Cape Town specialist hospitals.

14/05/2024

Thula the rhino:

In November 2016 Dr Goodhead was called to examine a 6-month-old rhino orphan at the Rhino Orphanage.
“Thula’s” mom had been poached and unfortunately died, and Thula had suffered a bullet wound that penetrated across the shoulder blades with entry and exit wounds. Both eyes were also severely damaged. After examination it was decided to remove the one globe and place a graft over the other cornea to try and save the globe but sadly not her vision. With the excellent care by the orphanage, Thula has grown up to be a magnificent adult rhino.

In March 2024, Dr Goodhead heard that Thula was still doing amazing and is now also pregnant. Dr Goodhead and some of the staff members from Jhb Animal Eye Hospital, went to visit and viewed Thula resting under the trees. This has been an amazing journey, to see that with a concerted effort, this rhino has been saved and despite being blind, the next generation is coming from her.

A big thank you to The Rhino Orphanage for their amazing work and energy they put into saving our rhinos for future generations to enjoy.

26/04/2024

Dr Brent recently attended the World Veterinary Association Congress in Cape Town and had the opportunity to present two posters during the week. Over 1300 veterinarians attended the congress, and both local and international speakers were presenting on various topics. We strive to remain at the forefront of veterinary ophthalmology and these sessions provide valuable insight and opportunity for learning!

02/12/2022

What's happening behind the scenes at the Jhb Animal Eye Hospital?

This short introductory video / virtual tour will showcase some of our procedures and specialized equipment at our fully equipped facility in Fourways.

Visit our website https://www.animaleyehospital.co.za/ for more info on the services we provide.

01/09/2022

The Johannesburg Animal Eye Hospital was recently invited to visit Vulpro in Hartebeespoort.
At this interactive visit we shared experience and knowledge regarding the vultures as well as the injuries commonly seen in wild birds presented for rehabilitation.
In total 18 birds’ eyes (36 eyes) were examined and these included Lappet Faced vultures (Torgos tracheliotos), White Backed vultures (Gyps africanus) and Cape vultures (Gyps coprotheres).
The examinations included direct- and indirect-ophthalmoscopy, slit-lamp biomicroscopy and tonometry.
Some interesting differences were noted between the species and valuable data was collected that will help guide our approach to sick and injured vultures.
From our side, we want to thank VulPro for the invitation and for sharing their knowledge with us. We want to encourage the public to get involved and support Vulpro.

11/02/2022

Drs Paul Burger and Brent Sirrals, our ophthalmology residents, have recently attended a rhino immobilization workshop.
During this week Dr Paul gathered data on rhino eyes for his research project. A total of 23 rhinos were examined (that is 46 eyes!) and some of the interesting things observed were cataracts and scars from old injuries.
Not much is known about the normal variation of rhino eyes and common pathology that occurs in wild rhinos.
The information gathered will help to assist animals in need if they ever need to be treated. Rhino poaching remains an ongoing threat to this species and currently the veterinary community in South Africa is gaining as much information as possible to assist in helping injured and sick animals, and in the long run, save this species from extinction.

19/11/2020

For a long time, we have tried to keep accurate records of the minimum and maximum temperature values of our pharmaceuticals. After trying many different thermometers, none were able to give any accurate data. Our practise manager (who also designed our new website) came up with an awesome idea and has created a smart temperature monitoring solution for our practices in Jhb & Cape Town. It sends monthly reports of the daily minimum and maximum temperatures from your pharmacy, fridges and freezers. It can also be set up to work from your mobile phone’s hotspot to use it in your car or bakkie’s cooler box.

Visit www.coolvetspaces.com for more info.
Or contact our practice manager, Ludwig at Cool Vet Spaces on 060 808 44 88 or info@coolvetspaces.com for a quote.

10/11/2020

04/11/2020

Our Awesome new website is up and running! https://www.animaleyehospital.co.za/

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