Ambani hospital offers help with sports injuries

Mumbai: The Centre for Sports Medicine at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital here is in discussions with some Indian sports bodies for availing its state-of-the art facility for the treatment of sports injuries.

"We are in discussions with multiple sports bodies and association to look after their sports persons. The idea is to offer a holistic approach. We want to ensure pre-season fitness and injury prevention besides their performance enhancement,". "We want to look at continuous calendar (fitness regime for sportspersons). There are very few centres like ours that offer a comprehensive programme. This is the biggest advantage that we have. So, with this kind of set up, we can cater to such needs" he said last evening on the sidelines of a seminar on sports medicine organised by the hospital. The Centre offers treatment for injured athletes and also sports performance enhancement facilities. The advanced surgical and rehabilitation facilities available at the centre ensure that the patients and sports individuals return to their highest capabilities in the shortest possible time. Stating that the hospital is keen to work closely with sports bodies, Shetty said currently individual sportspersons from different sports such as cricket, football, boxing, badminton etc are already availing the facility for treatment of the injuries. "We are at a fairly evolved stage (of discussions). The sportspersons are already coming in at the centre, now it is only about a formal tie-up (with the sports bodies)," Dr Shetty said. "We don`t want them to come only when they are injured, but from the very initial stage- from pre-season onwards to entire on-field," he said. The centre currently conducts around 1000 physiotherapy sessions for the sportspersons for multiple sports across all levels. Besides catering to the needs of the domestic sportspersons, the Centre also draws national-level athletes and players from neigbouring countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, Shetty said. Earlier, addressing the seminar, which was also attended by Bollywood actor Gul Panag, Indian cricket board`s Chief Administrative Officer, Professor Ratnakar Shetty, called upon sports bodies in the country to come on a common platform for creating awareness about the importance of sports medicine. "It is necessary that all sports organisations, including BCCI, should come to one platform, create an atmosphere of learning, create an easy knowledge base that is available to sports persons, and to understand the places they can go to treat the injuries, and the type of treatment they will get," Prof. Shetty said. PTI