News
TRH visit the Brooke Hospital for Animals in Cairo
22nd March 2006
The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall visited a hospital for horses and donkeys today during their third day in Egypt.
The Brooke Hospital for Animals in Cairo provides free veterinary treatment for horses and donkeys, advice for owners on animal management, free hoofcare support and water troughs and shade shelters.
Over the years it has grown to become an animal welfare charity for the developing world with operations in Jordan, India and Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kenya and Guatemala. Last year it cared for nearly 320,000 animals in Egypt.
Their Royal Highnesses handed out several carrots and treats for the animals as they toured the facility.
The Duchess in particular is a keen horsewoman and attended a fundraising event for the charity in Aberdeen in 2004, while The Prince visited one of the charity's clinics in Luxor in 1995.
Lady Hilary Weir, chairman of the trustees for the charity, said: “She said she really was moved and wanted to lend her support. She was fantastic. They understand horses so it means something to them.”
Inside the inpatient ward, which is currently caring for 53 horses, The Duchess expressed concern for one in particular which was badly hurt after being hit by a car in busy Cairo traffic.
The Duchess said as she was shown the cart horse, which is used to pull heavily laden loads of Egyptian brick from kilns around Cairo: “It's so thin, so very very thin.”
Many of the animals have been treated badly and are not used to receiving treats from humans. Their Royal Highnesses were clearly taken by a young grey foal, hurt in traffic as it trotted next to its mother.
The Brooke Hospital is located on the “Street of the English Lady”, named after Dorothy Brooke, the British wife of an Army Major General who set up the charity in Cairo in 1934 after learning of the plight of British ex-cavalry horses..
Dr Ahmed Rostom, the vet who showed them around, said working horses in Cairo can be made to spend up to nine hours in the sun each day at the Pyramids at Giza.
They wait, without water, to make around three or four trips a day, if the owners are lucky, to transport tourists around the site for £2 a go.
Their harnesses are badly constructed, cutting into their noses, and they often get beaten.
“We're not living in a perfect world but we're trying to make their owners aware,” Dr Rostom said.
“They love their horses. What they're doing is being ignorant. They need to know about husbandry and the work that Brooke does.”
He added: “I don't judge them. I don't prosecute them. I‘m just trying to offer them advice and earn their trust.”
The Prince and The Duchess are on the third day of their two-week overseas tour, which will also take them to Saudi Arabia and India.
Later, The Prince and The Duchess attended the opening of the British University in Egypt with Egypt‘s First Lady Mrs Suzanne Mubarak.