Abstract

BUITRAGO-ECHEVERRI, María Teresa. Transformations of institutions devoted to the care of people with disabilities in Colombia 1970-2010. rev.fac.med. [online]. 2015, vol.63, suppl.1, pp.125-134. ISSN 0120-0011.  https://doi.org/10.15446/revfacmed.v63n3sup.49332.

Disability as a social construct involves social representations and practices that are a consequence of it, and which have implications on the lives of individuals, groups or populations. Some of the answers to the needs of people with disabilities had their birth in institutions that were create with philanthropic purposes and have been experiencing a transformation processs. This paper is part of an investigation about social constructions of disability in Colombia over the past four decades, developed through a critical perspective multipurpose ethnography whose sources of inquiry were expediencies from institutions, groups, and people, as well as documentation related to this topic. In this paper the transformation of institutions devoted to the care of this population with regard to their entry into the health market, since the enactment of Law 100 of 1993, is illustrated. Furthermore, this study shows how the institutions take part in an inordinate career to enter and stay in services provision market , a scenario that confirms the positioning of Health as a business, and in this field, functional rehabilitation as the standard to follow. Artifices like service accreditation, social marketing, modern technologies offer and the different specialties and subspecialties, in addition to the euphemisms related to name changes, are put forward as symbolic, cultural and economic capitals that keep the players on the field disability as a matter of service delivery, which takes away the relationship between public health and disability.

Keywords : Medical anthropology; Public health; Health services.

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