The Mexican Rehabilitation Institute was founded in 1960 in Mexico City; responding to the social need for comprehensive rehabilitation for people with motor disabilities. The Institute was established as a civil society, receiving contributions from the Mexican government, private companies, and the Mary Street Jenkins Foundation. It became one of the most important rehabilitation institutes in Latin America.

The Institute was an initiative of Mr. Rómulo O’Farril Silva (1897-1981), a prominent Mexican businessman, politician and telecommunications pioneer. As an amputee who underwent rehabilitation in the United States, he replicated the operating model and imported the concept to Mexico. Silva created a rehabilitation centre with the highest quality standards through multidisciplinary work, that permitted the incorporation of new professions into the world of rehabilitation.

The Mexican Institute of Rehabilitation also functioned as a teaching hospital, as it was one of the first five schools in Mexico to offer technical courses in Physical Therapy (now formerly known as Physiotherapy), Occupational Therapy, and Orthotics and Prosthetics. Many Latin American students came to Mexico City to study at the Mexican Institute of Rehabilitation. Graduate therapists earned their technical degree through a curriculum that, at the time, lacked sufficient credits to be considered a university degree. However, in practice, this group of therapists possessed multidisciplinary work skills with a humanistic approach that allowed them to become extraordinary professionals who made significant contributions to the history of rehabilitation throughout Latin America.

The Institute provided services to individuals requiring rehabilitation services for motor disabilities, such as amputees or those with neurological or trauma-related conditions. The vast majority of patients were amputees. The Institute had a consultation unit where patients were treated by specialists, and an inpatient and surgical area for those who required it. The physiotherapy department featured electrotherapy equipment used to reduce pain and strengthen remaining muscles. There was also a hydrotherapy and mechanotherapy area where residual abilities were retrained to relearn all activities of daily living,  as walking and moving around with a technical aid, such as a wheelchair, crutches, or an orthosis or prosthesis that replaced and/or compensated for the function, enabling the individual to reintegrate into a profession and be productive in society.

The Institute was active for 23 years, becoming an icon of rehabilitation in Latin America, clearly demonstrating the transition from a biomedical to a biopsychosocial healthcare model. The concepts of disability, functional recovery, motor learning, and social and occupational rehabilitation brought new challenges to a society that was not yet ready to fully embrace the labour rights of people with disabilities.

Unfortunately, the Institute had to close its doors in 1983 due to a strike by workers in the industrial sector, owing to the lack of a legal labor framework for people with disabilities that included claims regarding working hours, wages, extra compensation, etc., for the people with disabilities working there. The latter found themselves unprotected in the face of the new labor definition of workers with disabilities.

The creation of an Institute with the social, cultural, political, and profoundly humanistic reach achieved by the Mexican Rehabilitation Institute probably exceeded the expectations of a society that was not yet ready to shelter, integrate, and truly include people with disabilities in Mexico at the end of the 20th century.

References

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