Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju launches athlete injury management system
Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju on Friday launched an ambitious initiative to provide world class treatment and rehabilitation to elite athletes injured during competition or training.
The Centralised Athlete Injury Management System (CAIMS) aims to provide inputs on prevention, diagnosis and high quality treatment and rehabilitation to athletes on time and maintain records for mapping their injury via an Online Athlete Management System.
This system, to be run by the Sports Authority of India (SAI) in collaboration with the leading medical experts of the country, will be applied initially to the developmental group of athletes for the 2024 Paris Olympics and will broaden to others later on.
"I have seen athletes whose careers have been damaged or shortened due to lack of timely and proper treatment of even common injuries. For some injuries, treatment is not available in our country and athletes will have to go abroad. So, this is a humble beginning to address that," Rijiju said in an online event.
"I hope this initiative will lead to a system where we will have a professional way of managing injury of athletes. It is something long desired by one and all.
This is a centralised platform where we will have a common and uniform injury and rehabilitation management system."
He said sports science in India is still in a nascent state and need improvement.
"We want to be a sporting powerhouse and to have a world class injury management is an integral part of that. Injury management is a part of that (sports science). We need an excellent and professional injury management of the athletes."
"We will need upgradation and improvisation in many things and that is how we will learn to make this a success."
Indian Olympic Association President Narinder Batra lauded the Sports Ministry and the Sports Authority of India for the initiative.
"A lack of communication between athletes and medical providers leads to devastating injuries to athletes, hinders their recovery and leads to re-injury and that affects their career," Batra said.
"I would like to emphasise that the confidentiality of the injury of the athletes should be maintained and should never be made public."
Sports Secretary Ravi Mittal, SAI Director General Sandip Pradhan, IOA Secretary General Rajiv Mehta, renowned orthopaedic surgeons like SKS Marya, Anant Joshi and Dinshaw Pardiwala were also present.
