Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Center

The Founders

Prof Sir John Golding

Sir John Golding

Sir John Simon Rawson Golding dedicated his professional career to promoting the welfare of the disabled.  He regarded the underprivileged and needy as his constituency.  His relentless energy and enthusiasm for his work has benefited thousands of Jamaicans spanning a period of over forty years.

John Golding arrived in Jamaica in 1953 to open the orthopaedic department at the university hospital and to study the natural history of the conditions affecting orthopaedic patients in the caribbean. He established the Mona Rehabilitation Centre after the outbreak of poliomyelitis of 1954 struck the country.  He remained medical officer in charge of the centre until his death.

In 1958 he became professor of tropical orthopaedic surgery, rehabilitation and trauma. In 1987, he was made professor emeritus of the University of the West Indies and retired from the university hospital though he continued to teach surgery, do clinics and undertake some operations until his death.

Achievements

 


 

Samuel C. Henriques

portrait of Samuel C. Henriques

Samuel “Sammy” Henriques, co-founder of the Mona Rehabilitation Centre, was a fundraiser par excellence and generous benefactor.

Sammy was a successful businessman  from one of Jamaica’s leading commercial families.  His personality and solid private sector contacts sourced the required funds to initially build the Centre in 1954 and later to maintain the wards and facilities until his death in 1986.  His ability to motivate and mobilise the public over a thirty-year period to generously respond to the needs of the physically disabled place him dearly in their hearts.

The Henriques Wing at the Centre is named after Sammy and his family.