Safe and secure for elite athletes

With just over two months to go before the Regional Sports Festival opens, the Vietnam Sports Delegation (VSD) has formed 95% of its force and is in the final stage of training.

However, according to Mr. Nguyen Anh Minh, Deputy Director in charge of the National High-Level Athlete Training Center, the teams are currently following the plan, with guaranteed nutrition and adequate supplements, but it is urgent to add a team of doctors to recover the athletes.

Leaders of the sports sector, coaches of the athletics, karate, wushu, sepak takraw, taekwondo teams... all said that the athletes are at a time of very heavy training to reach their "peak" at the 33rd SEA Games, but there is a lack of doctors and specialists to serve the health care and massage work to minimize injuries. Faced with the common difficulty of the current lack of medical staff and doctors at the Center, some teams have also proposed to the leaders of the Vietnam Sports Department to provide additional equipment such as massage machines and ice makers for the athletes to use after each training hour... They also hope to have training courses to disseminate physical therapy and rehabilitation skills to coaches and athletes.

In fact, health and medicine in sports have long been a weakness of Vietnam Sports Administration. Currently, the entire industry has only one Vietnam Sports Hospital, which is the mainstay in taking care of athletes' health, but it only focuses on the injury treatment process, while the care, rehabilitation, and direct participation in the training phase... are almost lacking in staff and facilities.

In addition, the number of specialized sports doctors in Vietnam is currently not trained fast enough to meet the demand, so there is almost no room for experts and specialists in specific fields such as rehabilitation therapy or higher levels of psychology and nutrition.

The lack of a team of sports doctors is also one of the reasons why Vietnam always faces the worry of doping and serious injuries. Without a specialist, coaches and athletes cannot control functional products to support recovery due to lack of knowledge or not being updated on medical regulations, which can easily lead to misuse or excess use of banned substances.

In addition, issues related to athletes' gender also require consultation or supervision from a team of health experts due to many factors beyond the assessment capacity and authority of coaches and sport managers.

Director of the Vietnam Sports Administration Nguyen Danh Hoang Viet emphasized that the concerns and recommendations from coaches and athletes are not only immediate needs, but also legitimate demands for the sustainable development of Vietnam. However, at present, the sports industry is only solving immediate problems, providing equipment such as ice machines to support recovery, agreeing with training proposals at centers with facilities that ensure health, working with the Vietnam Sports Hospital to support during this time, and at the same time recommending that teams be serious in using supporting foods...

It can be seen that the difficulties in the medical field that Vietnam is facing are not easy to solve in a day or two. Even in social life, the treatment of injuries caused by daily sports training is lacking doctors and specialized medical facilities due to the rapid development of the sports movement in urban areas.

But clearly, the demands from elite sports teams are urgent, with the potential to affect international competitions more and more, the sports industry may have to flexibly choose outsourcing solutions, including foreign experts, training knowledge for on-site teams, equipping advanced health monitoring applications... while waiting for the development of a sports medical team. In other words, it is necessary to ensure the safety of athletes so that they can confidently contribute and compete to the best of their ability for the country's sports.

YEN PHUONG

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/an-toan-an-tam-cho-van-dong-vien-dinh-cao-post813829.html