More and more people are getting pets and partly thanks to the insurance companies' animal insurance, more people can afford to seek care for their animals. At the same time, animal health care is being developed and growing expertise means that more and more treatments can be offered.

In order for the industry to be able to grow in line with demand, the member company Svensk Animalcare has calculated that at least 365 new veterinarians need to be recruited in the next 12 months, 94 of these with specialized expertise. At the same time, 134 legitimate animal nurses and 121 animal carers are needed. When the staff is not enough, the animal hospitals cannot receive all animals that need care.

- The animals suffer, the animal owners despair. For some, it is like their children who do not receive care. When we cannot receive the most severely ill animals the animals die, says Mia Runnérus.

Get education places

In Sweden, there is a training for veterinarians, at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), where it assumes 100 people per year. About 80-90 percent of these are examined. At the same university there are the country's 80 places for legitimate animal nurses.

- We would need at least double the number of training places, says Mia Runnérus.

Many people dream of becoming a veterinarian, far more than the number of places of education, she points out.

- Since everyone does not come into Sweden, many are applying abroad, including Denmark, Poland and Hungary. About as many Swedes who are examined in Sweden are examined abroad, without them the situation would have been even worse.

More money

According to the Swedish Board of Agriculture, no further training places in Sweden are in progress.

-We are extremely aware that there are no veterinarians and that more training places at SLU would be needed. Unfortunately, we can't do much about it except to point out to the ministry that SLU needs to get more funds, says Ulrika Bergman, administrator of the Swedish Board of Agriculture.