‘Dilapidated roads of Karachi causing joint issues for motorcyclists’

Around 56 per cent of young motorcyclists in Karachi are suffering from chronic lower back pain due to injuries they suffer while riding motorcycles on dilapidated roads with depressions, potholes and open manholes, health experts said on Thursday.

They added that not only the motorcycles but even women who travelled in rickshaws in Karachi were suffering from lower back pain due to strain and injuries they suffered on the broken roads of the city.

Addressing a news conference, the health experts urged the authorities to launch an immediate drive to repair all the main and branch roads in the city to prevent young men and women from getting permanently disabled due to dilapidated roads in the megalopolis.

“Our research and data collected from various health facilities indicate that around 56 per cent of motorcyclists, mostly young college and university students, are complaining of chronic lower back pain due to broken roads of Karachi. Many motorcyclists are now unable to drive their bikes for sustaining serious damage to their ligaments or backbone because of dilapidated condition of roads in Karachi,” remarked rheumatologist Dr Saliha Ishaq.

"It's alarming. And I say this because many motorcyclists are now found unable to drive their bikes after sustaining serious damage to their ligaments or backbone because of dilapidated condition of roads in Karachi."

She referred to unprecedented increase in the complaints of muscle and joint pain, which led to an effort to collect the data and ascertain the reason behind the fresh trend. She warned that if the timely treatment of such problems was not carried out, it could damage the quality of life.

"So we advise people with such complaints to approach trained and qualified rheumatologists for the timely diagnosis and treatment for their conditions. Realising the growing need, Pakistan’s first arthritis centre has been launched in Karachi recently by a group of health experts for the early diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal diseases and systemic autoimmune conditions, commonly referred to as rheumatic diseases," she added.

According to experts, rheumatoid arthritis or RA is an autoimmune and inflammatory disease, in which the immune system of a person attacks healthy cells in his or her body by mistake, causing inflammation (painful swelling) in the affected parts of the body. Rheumatoid arthritis mainly attacks the joints, usually many joints at once.

Dr Babar Saeed of the Ehad Medical Center (EMC), which is treating such patients at its 20 centres across Karachi, said that around three per cent of Pakistani population is already suffering from different autoimmune diseases as well as rheumatoid arthritis but unfortunately, due to lack of trained and qualified rheumatologists in Pakistan, thousands of people, both young and old, are living with chronic pain for years without proper treatment and management.

“Now this fast depleting infrastructure and poor road conditions in Karachi are further adding burden to our health system and most alarmingly affecting people's health and routine life," he said.

Unfortunately, he said most of the patients with arthritis, especially backache is misdiagnosed and suffer for months or even years before reaching to any trained and qualified rheumatologist.