City of Rio will gain municipal public veterinary hospital in Irajá

The hospital will be built by private initiative on the ground floor of a building that belonged to a telephone company - Beth Santos/City Hall of Rio

Rio de Janeiro will gain a new municipal public veterinary hospital in the North Zone. On Wednesday (10/4), the City Hall, in partnership with Cury Construtora, launched the construction of the Irajá Veterinary Hospital, located at Rua Hannibal Porto, 450. The facility will be built by the private sector on the ground floor of a nine-story building that was previously occupied by a telephone company. The building was donated to the city by the construction company in exchange for licenses for residential developments in the region.

– This was a commitment of ours, to create a reference veterinary hospital. We have two units in the city that we are proud of and that work very well. But it was a dream to have a state-of-the-art hospital that will be the best veterinary hospital in Brazil. It is yet another public unit in the city. We have one in Santa Cruz, another in Mangueira and now we will have this one in Irajá – stated Mayor Eduardo Paes.

The Irajá Veterinary Hospital project includes outpatient clinics, consulting rooms, an X-ray room, wards, a surgical center, a pharmacy area, a laboratory, administration, a cafeteria and employee changing rooms. All the equipment will be located in an area of ​​approximately 790 square meters on the first floor and is expected to be delivered in the third quarter of this year. The occupancy of the other floors is yet to be defined by the city.

– It is important to highlight the efforts that the City Hall has made to densify the areas with the best infrastructure in the city. In this case, we are talking about the North Zone, and Cury, understanding this guideline, has been carrying out projects in the region. This is very welcome from the point of view of city planning. Today, we are at an event to donate a public facility that arises from obligations arising from residential developments. So, here Cury proposed to donate this building to the City and build the veterinary hospital – said the Executive Undersecretary of the Municipal Secretariat for Urban and Economic Development (SMDUE), Thiago Dias.

The nine-story building was provided by Cury Construtora in exchange for construction permits for four residential complexes in the same region. The city's urban planning law requires that permits for the construction of groups, i.e. condominiums with more than 500 residential units, must be provided in exchange for a donation of land by the construction company responsible for the installation of public facilities. With permit processes underway for the construction of residential units in the region, the company chose to meet the requirement by transferring an already constructed building to the city instead of a lot.

– When we acquired this land, one thing that caught our attention was the fact that there was already a building installed here, a heritage site. In conversations with the City Hall, we thought about how to use this building to generate value for the region. And not simply demolish the building and lose it. Based on these conversations, we obtained the counterparts to bring this hospital and serve the Irajá neighborhood – declared the Vice President of Business at Cury Construtora, Leonardo Mesquita.

This will be the second public municipal veterinary hospital. In February of last year, the Rio de Janeiro City Hall opened the Santa Cruz Veterinary Hospital, which operates on the premises of the Paulo Dacorso Filho Center for Zoonosis Control. The unit, managed by the Municipal Institute of Health Surveillance, Zoonosis Surveillance and Agricultural Inspection (IVISA-Rio), has the capacity to care for approximately 80 animals with veterinary consultations, exams, elective surgeries, dressings, medication administration, microchipping and rabies vaccination.

The City Hall also has the Jorge Vaitsman Veterinary Medicine Unit in Mangueira, which provides free veterinary services and specialized care for pets at low cost, such as surgeries, consultations, laboratory and imaging tests, burials and even cremations. Among the services offered free of charge are castrations, diagnosis of zoonoses, microchipping and anti-rabies vaccination. The center also promotes pet adoptions.