Dr James Robson MBE reflects on COVID-19 crisis
Scottish Rugby’s Chief Medical Officer Dr James Robson MBE spoke to the media this week to reflect on the current COVID-19 crisis and how Scottish Rugby and himself were working to support players and the wider organisation. Here is what he had to say.
On player welfare
“We have looked very carefully at players and their mental health because
of course a lockdown, as the government has flagged up, will lead to an
increase in mental health issues and most people are perhaps as vulnerable, if
not more vulnerable because their usual routine has been curtailed and they are
used to being a very gregarious group.
“As we have come into the lockdown, we have made sure that we have
communicated very quickly, we have got stuff that we have put in place for them
in addition, of course, each of the team doctors for the pro teams, ourselves
and some of the individual team doctors from some of the other groups, the
likes of the U20s and the Women’s team are all accessible by the players,
should they wish to contact us.
“We are all struggling with the change in our regime.”
On ‘behind closed door’ matches
“Taking matches behind closed doors simply takes away the logistical
problem of having a crowd and it just alters what you need to put in place in
order to cope with that crowd.
“What it doesn’t change is the actual physical nature of a particular
game. So closed doors changes some aspects but of course it doesn’t
fundamentally change the aspect of rugby or indeed any sport that has an
injury. We can’t contemplate going behind closed doors until we get some
semblance of normality back to our NHS and private care providers.
“You can widen it to any sport so as physical activity is now very much a
key strand of maintaining population health, it helps with reducing obesity, it
also is used in reducing cancer, diseases like diabetes. So, everybody now has
an acknowledgement that physical activity and increased physical activity is
good for you.
“Indeed professional sport might help with the psyche of the nation
because it gives the population something to focus on and something to watch
but the everyday sport has a part to play in the fabric of our society and it
is what can we do to help those sports get back and it might be that we have
just now is not what we will have in the near future or indeed even more the
long term.
“Getting back to any sport carries a risk of injury, we just need to
balance that risk and it has to be at a time that suits the population. We have
got to be guided by the government. We have got to be guided by our NHS
colleagues.”
On players resuming playing?
“We are building that into our scenario planning.
“You can’t just rush people back. When we’ve had a break of any
significant period you have to do it in a step-by-step fashion. In the same way you have the graduated return to play protocols for those who have had
concussion, we need a graduated return to training. So when we get a handle on
when we might start playing matches or when we might start getting back to group
training, prior to that we will need to instruct to players what they need to do
to get themselves ready.
“Of course, it mirrors – but perhaps for a longer time – the period of
time that they get off for the summer holidays. When they come back from the
summer holidays, they don’t just go straight back into playing rugby so there
is going to be a period of individual training, a period of group training and
then there will be contact and conditioning so there is quite a significant
period of time required to get boys back into training in any sport but
particularly in a contact sport.
“Of course, there is an unintended consequence here of post-lockdown
equals rest for the players and from my point of view it’s quite nice for the
boys to actually have a period of time where the bodies can rest and
recuperate.”
On the Scotland vs France game
“We took advice – the best advice – in collaboration with the government
at the time and I felt that was the right thing to do. I mean subsequently
events have changed, knowledge has changed and sport has closed down, as have
mass gatherings. You can only observe the information you have at hand and we
certainly put in all the mitigating factors that were being recommended at the
time by the World Health Organisation. We had massive amounts of sanitation
areas. We were putting out public health messages. We were working with the
government to collaborate on that…at the time that was certainly felt the right
thing to do.”
On players and COVID-19
“If you look at the population in general with the spread of infection
across…and I am aware of one or two of our players who have almost certainly
had the illness. Currently we’ve got a reasonable state of health but of course
we are monitoring that very closely but so far, the initial player from the
female squad is the only person that I’m aware of that has ended up in
hospital, which is a fortuitous place to be.
“There are two aspects to the illness in our population. I did say to
the boys when I was first telling them about the virus that they were
relatively safe because they were younger but of course they took such a toll
on their immune system with the amount of training that they have to do that
makes them slightly vulnerable so they are doubly exposed. But I did say to
them that they were perhaps in a better position than me as I was greater than
60 and more likely that I would be more severely affected.”
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