Clinic named after Paralympic pioneer
THE MEDICAL centre that has served athletes from around the world for the weeks of London 2012 is to be renamed in honour of the pioneering doctor who created the Paralympic Games.
The polyclinic, which i s t o become a permanent fixture in Stratford, east London, has been labelled the Sir L u d w i g G u t t - mann Health Centre, in honour of the German Jewish neurosurgeon who challenged attitudes to treating paraplegics before arranging the first Paralympic tournament in summer 1948.
The clinic was s t a f f e d by 1 00 medical experts over the period of the Games and was home to top medical equipment including three MRI scanners.
It will now become a general surgery, from which local residents can benefit as part of the overall regenera- tion of the Olympic neighbourhood.
“My father would have been honoured and thrilled to know that the legacy of the London 2012 Games would include a polyclinic that bore his name and served a community that had its roots in the wonderful Olympic and Paralympic Games of 2012,” s a i d Dr Guttmann’s daughter, Eva Loeffler, who served as mayor of t he Paralympic Athletes’ Village this summer.
A bust of Dr G u t t m a n n , which was on s h o w i n t h e Olympic Park for the duration of the Games, will now be sent to the International Paralympic Committee headquarters in Bonn and then be a fixture of every Paralympic Games in future.
“It’s very exciting how the whole Ludwig Guttmann story has come out over the Games,” said Mike McKenzie, chairman of the Poppa Guttmann Trust.