Basic HTML Version
Touchline • Issue 18 • 15
or can’t go back on, the other important work that can be done
is before the season starts, in getting baseline brain function
testing in place. This gives you a base line comparative tool
later on if someone suffers a suspected concussion. This is
what I think is missing and one of the things that attracted
Sportscover to work with Ryan in particular.
Hans Westerbeek:
If those multi million and billion dollar
law suits actually get through and pay outs need to be done,
are certain sports going to become uninsurable? Is it going to
be too hard to get insurance and therefore be indirectly the
downfall of those sports?
David Lamb:
Yes, that’s a real threat. Obviously an insurance
company is there to pay, and in these circumstances insurance
companies do have a responsibility and people might say
“phew, I’ve got insurance so I’m ok”. Some of them buy 2, or
5, or 10 million dollars cover but anything over and above
that goes back to the sport itself and then they become
bankrupt. We love sport. It’s what we do, so we don’t want to
see it disappear. The worst case otherwise, and I don’t mean
to sound scaremongering, is that you can potentially become
uninsurable.
Think of it in another way. If you’re a parent and your kids’ are
playing sport, which sport do you want them to play? There’s a
lot of competition out there for sports.
Hans Westerbeek:
Lets open this up to the audience and see if
they have any questions?
Geoff Shoenberg from Griffith University:
As somebody who
once in a while is an amateur football referee, I’m wondering
what you guys believe the roles and responsibilities of
referees will be in terms of managing concussion, particularly
in community sport, and I guess from a legal stem point
as well, the insurance and how that might affect sporting
organisations.
David Lamb:
From an official’s perspective, I think there’s a
real issue there: I talked about objectivity before. I remember
a state of Origin game a few years back when someone got
knocked senseless in the first couple of minutes and no
trainers went near him. The reason that no trainers went near
him is that if they assess him with concussion then you have
to take him off. If the trainers keep away from him then he
wanders around in circles for a while until he comes good, you
don’t have to take him off.
Unfortunately whilst most medical professionals have the
players’ interests at heart, sometimes there is the tendency
to put winning or the competitiveness ahead, so anything
you can do to look at making it a little less subjective and a
little more objective is a positive step. Having said that, it’s an
onerous responsibility for a referee to take on when they are
probably not medically trained. Whilst in principle I think it
might be fine, I’m not sure how it would work in practice.
Ryan Kohler:
That’s the key point. You shouldn’t take on the
responsibility to make the diagnosis. Within your training in
a number of codes: they have a medical education section
for you as part of your accreditation. Studies show that the
education only lasts for about two months so there’s a big
need to re-emphasis and repeat. As humans we need to do
that, but I repeatedly say that you don’t have to shoulder that
burden. The only responsibility is to recognise features of
concussion, and remove the player. Within that you’ve done
virtually everything that’s expected of you, and I guess your
only possible ongoing responsibility is to get them to, or direct
them to medical care, or to medical care under the guidance of
a responsible adult. That’s it.
Mark Landvill from the Australian Drug Foundation:
Will
there come a time when clubs or a league will insert into
players contracts a disclaimer similar to what you might sign
if you went sky-diving, saying that they (the club) have done
everything to the best of their ability to protect the player, but
that at the end of the day the player knows the risk and there’s
a chance they could be concussed?
David Lamb:
There’s a degree of acceptance of responsibility
now. There is certain legislation in place that says that if you
undertake a hazardous activity – if you jump out of a plane
for example, that there’s a chance your parachute might not
open. Those types of things exist in daily life but you’ve got
to look at who’s in the best position to make the decision. You
can’t give consent to contract away your common law rights
in terms of medical care and best prevention. You’re not a
medially qualified doctor, but you accept that there’s risk of
concussion. We don’t want to sanitise the game too much.
We’ve seen some rule modifications to try and limit targeting
a player’s head (in the AFL for example), so we’ve done some
good in that. The NRL has also done some great work with
interchange, but I think that one of the biggest problems
in not necessarily being knocked out on the day – it is how
quickly you return to play. You might seem ok on the Thursday
night and then you get picked to play on the Saturday. That’s
the big problem. The players are returning to the field too
soon. That was the gist of the Greg Williams problem: where
players are being returning to the field too often. I think you
can put into players contracts that they recognise the inherent
risks of concussion along with the many other physical risks
but I don’t think you can contract out your duty of care to that
player’s wellbeing and that duty of care extends to having the
best possible medical treatment that’s available.
We’re not talking multimillion dollar stuff here – we’re talking
pretty affordable tests that can be pushed right out to the
grass roots. I think as long as the sport does that it’s ok, but I
don’t think the player in that instance would be expected to
be signing away their rights.
