Sports injuries hit public where it hurts
New Zealand’s love of sport is costing hundreds of millions, Jack Barlow reports. Dead woman named
IT may be good for personal fitness, but New Zealanders’ love of sport is costing the country over half a billion dollars every year.
ACC’s sporting injuries bill has rocketed by more than $100 million in just three years, and now stands at over $508m.
Unsurprisingly, rugby was the leading sport linked to injury payouts. The most up-to-date figures, from 2015, showed the sport cost ACC $76m. That’s up from $67m in 2013.
Given just over 150,000 people were signed up to play rugby in 2015, that works out as a tad over $500 for every player in the country.
Every sport has its own types of injuries – since rugby is a contact sport, these often include broken and dislocated bones, knee injuries, ligament damage and concussions.
Shannon Paku, who played for the Hurricanes and Blues in Super Rugby, said he’d suffered a number of injuries throughout his career, like most rugby players who spent many years in the sport.
‘‘My most common injury was to my ankles,’’ he said.
‘‘I’d sprain them, roll them, although I generally managed pretty well with the help of a physio.’’
He said the worst injury he sustained was a shoulder dislocation at the very end of his career.
‘‘I was leaving the game anyway, but it ended up being pretty much the last thing that happened to me on a rugby field.’’
High-profile players to suffer season-ending injuries in 2016 included All Blacks Sonny Bill Williams and Nehe MilnerSkudder, and rugby league star Roger Tuivasa-Sheck.
Still, Paku said that there were all sorts of non-sport related injuries that cost ACC millions and it would be unfair to single rugby out as a financial drain.
‘‘You can have a full-on game of rugby and be fine, but then slip in the shower – or something – and hurt yourself badly,’’ he said.
‘‘There are all sorts of common injuries that’ll be costing millions.’’
One factor in the rising injury rate has been an increase in participation in sports, particularly rugby.
New Zealand Rugby chief executive Steve Tew said the number of truly serious rugby injuries had declined over the past decade. PHOTOSPORT
‘‘The safety of players is of paramount importance,’’ Tew said.
‘‘The good news is that our injury programmes delivered through RugbySmart have significantly reduced the number of catastrophic injuries.’’
For its part, ACC said it had implemented various programmes – including the recent SportSmart Warm Up, based on a Fifa model – to try to curb sports injuries.
‘‘Our goal is to work directly with sports groups to ensure players, coaches and anyone associated with sport have the right skills and techniques to minimise their risks,’’ an ACC spokesman said. POLICE have confirmed the woman found dead on a Bay of Plenty beach on Friday evening is Marama Lloyd. The 54-year-old from Otaki was reported missing by her daughter, Waitiria Greeks, on January 4. She said Lloyd had been staying in Opape, 13km east of Opotiki, with a cousin but hadn’t been seen since New Year’s Eve. A passer-by notified police of the body at an area known as Morice’s Bay, near Torere, about 7pm on Friday. Police confirmed the identity yesterday afternoon, saying the death is not thought to be suspicious and would be referred to the coroner.