Improve sports medicine to save players: There is need for federations to treat medical issues of players seriously

Harun Shakava of Gor Mahia is helped by Wilson Obungo of Bandari after he got an injury during a Sportspesa Premier League Match staged at Moi Stadium Kisumu as other players and match officials look on on Sunday 8-7-16. PICTURE BY PHILLIP ORWA

If there is any certainty in the mind of an athlete, it is his or her susceptibility to injury.

Injuries and comebacks are a part of sports and only the very fortunate players go through the full cycles of their careers without injury-related pauses.

Many times, athletes get injured, get treated and record magical comebacks.

At times, depending on several factors — both physical and psychological — they get severe injuries that maim them for life, forcing them to make the choiceless decision to give up sport, before they realise their potential.

In the case of a player coming back from injury, there is the worry of whether he or she will be able to regain his past form and explore the horizons of his talent, or a ‘has-been’ who is so debilitated that he can no longer carry out his responsibilities.

The difference between an early return to the pitch, weeks on the bench or never playing again is all dependent on prompt and proper medical response, highly qualified personnel and availability of good equipment – all which are currently lacking in as far as the growing Kenyan sports industry is concerned.

“We usually have occasional seminars every year where we are trained by other Kenyan doctors who are more experienced, but I don’t think that is enough,” says Kenyan physiotherapist Wycliffe Omom. He  is the national football team’s physiotherapist as well as Mathare United’s.

“It is important that we emulate the best or the European system where training is highly specialised, consistent and variant according to the changing needs of this ever growing sports industry,” he says.

But that is easier said than done. It is a fact that very few teams in Kenya have actual team doctors who are employed by the club on full time basis. And even those that have doctors attached to the club seldom have them on the pitch side during match days.

It could be to cut costs or merely because they are ignorant to the dangers that players face within the 90 minutes on the pitch, but the cold reality is that many of the individuals who attend to injured players during match days are not doctors but physiotherapists. Due to the high medical costs involved and a lack of good medical insurance, teams and indeed players themselves shy away from seeking specialised help in hospitals.

To alleviate pain and facilitate swift return to the pitch, many Kenyan footballers end up overusing painkillers, anti-inflammatory medication and other prescription drugs. These always provide temporary reprieve, but they have even more detrimental effects especially in cases where the injury being masked was serious or progressive.

During February’s friendly match between Kenya’s SportPesa AllStars and a select side of English Premier League club Hull City at KCOM Stadium in Hull, Kenyan medical practitioners were accorded a free lesson in medical response and care.

Sixteen-year old academy midfielder Max Sheaf collided mid-air with Kenyan defender Wesley Onguso and came down hard, the impact of which fractured his temporal bones (situated at the sides and base of the skull) and he started bleeding from the ears. While Onguso was back on his two feet almost immediately after spitting blades of grass, and soil, but Sheaf remained on the ground and was convulsive for about five seconds before going completely still.

The Hull City doctors on call ventured devotedly onto the pitch, their equipment bags dangling across their bodies.

“We found him completely unconscious when we got to him,” says Omom, who traveled with the Kenyan side and accompanied the doctors to the pitch.

“He seemed to be suffering from memory loss and the doctors had to calm him down for about five minutes before he regained consciousness.

“Memory loss and temporary unconsciousness are normal reactions to head concussions, but I was taken aback by the meticulousness of the Hull City doctors,” he says.

For the 11 minutes that the referee stopped play to allow the teenager get medical attention, his doctors were engaged in a series of procedures that Kenyan players in similar situations can only dream of receiving.

Omom says that even after the teenage footballer was evacuated from the pitch having been resuscitated and fitted with an oxygen mask to aid his breathing, he was taken to the team’s emergency medical room inside the changing rooms for more specialised treatment.

“Those guys will leave nothing to chance. In that short period of time they had brought everything the player needed in order to mitigate the effects of the collision and concussion.

“Even the manner in which they placed him on the stretcher was different. They had a detachable stretcher on which they carefully and slowly placed the player before transferring him onto the main stretcher on which we carried him out.

“This is the kind of equipment that we don’t have,” Omom says. “There is a lot to be done and we have a long way to go to ensure that we respond to career-threatening injuries.”

During the Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon early this year, Liverpool’s £34million signing Sadio Mane had his own personal physiotherapist.

Tear-gas smoke engulf an emergency ambulance as fans of Gor Mahia FC and those of AFC Leopards clash with police at the Nyayo National stadium on August 23, 2015. .About ten people sustained serious injuries in this ugly face of football hooliganism that brought traffic to a standstill as chaos spread outside the stadium. [Photo: DENNIS OKEYO/STANDARD]

His coach, Jurgen Klopp, could therefore not gamble with his Senegal national team’s doctors. Lack of proper medical care is probably the reason why several Kenyan footballers have ended up giving up the sport due to injury. Anthony Kimani is a recent example of a player who had to give up the game while at the peak of his career.

A player like Innocent Mutiso who had a glittering career with top clubs was forced to stay out of active football for a while due to recurring injury. He had to source for funds to undergo surgery before going back to the pitch, to City Stars. The Kenyan Premier League management organises two training sessions for medical personnel attached to its various teams, but according to Omom, there is need for more of such sessions. Luckily, the wheels are in motion. Through world governing body Fifa, Football Kenya Federation plans to send more members of the federation’s health committee for overseas training so that they may acquire more skills.

“We plan to send a few well qualified doctors to seminars and congresses even outside Kenya so that they can get the necessary training,” Football Kenya Federation chairman Nick Mwendwa said.

But apart from having qualified personnel and the right equipment, it is also important to ensure that the personnel is well trained to use the equipment at their disposal, and then have the equipment in good working condition.

“For example, we don’t have defibrillators (DFB machine) currently, and in Romania there is a player who died last year because the DFB machine had batteries which had expired,” Omom says.

As a matter of urgency, he proposes that each ambulance attending to players during match day be equipped with a DFB machine which can restart the heart in cases of cardiac attacks, a detachable stretcher so as to avoid aggravating fractures when moving injured players off the pitch, and portable light oxygen cans that are crucial when a patient is experiencing difficulty in breathing.

But before all that is done, Kenyan footballers can only hope and pray — hope that they do not get injured, and pray that the responsible bodies act and improve the situation of sports medicine.