Rancho Los Amigos Hospital

Victims of spinal and head injuries and stroke come to Rancho’s spacious grassy campus, four thousand of them as in-patients alone, and many more on an out-patient basis, every year.  And Rancho responds with world-class rehabilitation therapy, and innovations and inventions created on the spot to meet the needs of each individual.

Downey Rotary is no stranger to Rancho.  William Harriman, for whom the iconic Administration Building is named, and who came to the institution as a 26 year old business man in 1915, was a longtime Downey Rotarian and was the President of the Club from 1929-30.  During the Depression, he would bring food baskets from Rancho’s gardens to sell to us Rotarians.  We benefited from the fresh produce, and the money went back to buy necessities for the indigents at Rancho, which had been know since the 1800’s as the Los Angeles County “poor farm.”

It was not until 1944 that a group of 32 patients was transferred from County General Hospital to Rancho Los Amigos for the treatment of poliomyelitis, and its history in the medical world began.  More recently, our member Pat Gomez Pratt was deeply involved all her life with the Foundation, and served for several years as the Foundation’s President.  Besides being run by a professional director, The Foundation is a place where volunteers work to raise money to buy equipment for the Center that its budget cannot afford.

In terms of innovative prosthesis technology, the geniuses at Rancho can make anything.  Robotic science has developed a robot hand, for example.  Wrists, shoulders, elbows are repaired and replaced.  And blade feet have given back to patients the chance to walk and run again.

Many patients are children and this is one place where they can just be kids again.  Everyone is there because they have a disability which they are learning to overcome.  The power of peer-to-peer acceptance is a powerful medicine in their determination to recover.

This summer Downey has been named as a host city for the 2015 Los Angeles Special Olympics, to house athletes and their traveling entourage.  Our club expects to help, as soon as we know more about the project.  The Foundation’s job is to get the word out.

Deborah as Executive Director of the Foundation promised to come back and tell us more.  On behalf of the club she was invited to join us as a member.  “I am excited to share this journey with you,” Deborah said.