The unit will open its doors at the end of June and will increase care for childhood cancer cases by 35%
The Hospital Sant Joan de Déu has inaugurated this Thursday the Pediatric Cancer Center Barcelona (PCCB), the first monographic center focused on the treatment and research of childhood cancer in Spain and the second in Europe. With the opening of this new health center it is expected increase hospital capacity care for new cases of pediatric cancer, going from 300 new cases that were covered until now at 400.
The inauguration of this new health facility in Sant Joan de Déu is a step forward in research and the fight against cancer. The Pediatric Cancer Center is a pioneering center, and this has been remarked by the ‘president’ of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonés, in his appearance at the opening ceremony. Aragonés also wanted to thank the work of the health personnel and remarked that “health research is a fundamental pillar of our society and that cannot be understood without the hospital system and without the vocational work carried out by the workers”.
The PCCB will open its doors at the end of this june with the aim of being a reference center in childhood cancer research, a type of cancer different from that of adults, and which requires a specific research for the development of therapies. This is intended to improve the treatment of patients and find a cure for some types of cancer that still do not have it. “Everything starts from a principle and that is that we do not cure them all. This is the reason to start saying this, we are going to change it and the path is research. We currently cure 8 out of 10 patients and our goal is to increase this figure through research”, explained Jaume Mora, scientific director of the oncology and hematology area at Hospital Sant Joan de Déu.
Solidarity Campaign
In February 2017 the Hospital launched the ‘For The Brave’ campaign, a fundraising campaign aimed at the opening of the PCCB that was presented as a project to build a pediatric oncology center. In total, at the end of the campaign the €37 million necessary, including donations from companies, entities and individuals, which allowed the start of construction of the Pediatric Cancer Center Barcelona in 2018 and its inauguration in 2022.
Josep Maria Argimon, ‘conseller’ of Health, wanted to thank all the people who have contributed in solidarity in raising funds for the opening of the center and has highlighted the iImportance of the social and welfare work that the PCCB will carry out. “Thanks to donations it has been possible to build a facility like this, but the most important thing is the social value, since this center is going to help children, adolescents and families spend their days as well as possible”, he remarked the counselor.
World reference
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Until now, the Hospital de Sant Joan de Déu has been a reference hospital, both in Spain and in Catalonia, in pediatric cancer care. However, the PCCB also claims to have a impact in Latin America, a region where inequity between countries and citizens continues to hamper problems in treating childhood cancer. Guillermo Chantada, oncologist and hematologist and president of the International Society of Pediatric Oncology (SIOP), celebrates this international projection of the PCCB and the intention of reaching all patients, including those who are in the most disadvantaged areas and who do not have access to treatment for childhood cancer from their countries. “We are intimately linked to Latin America since a part of the participating donors and the doctors who are here come from those countries. The PCCB also has the objective of treating patients who could not have a solution to be treated in Latin America”, has commented Chantada.
A center for children and families
The center has 1,400 square meters distributed over five floors that connect directly with the Sant Joan de Déu hospital. The PCCB responds to the need of both patients and families to have a center that is bright and welcoming so that the passage through the illness of children and families is as human as possible. On the first floor of the center are the external consultations with 21 multidisciplinary consultations so that it is the doctors who move from one consultation to another and not the patients who move throughout the building. On the second floor, which is where the hospitalization area is located, 37 single rooms and a rest area for families. Anna Negre, head of nursing at the PCCB, has underlined the need for families to find this normalcy within the disease process. “These spaces have been created so that both families and children and adolescents feel at home. The individual rooms allow greater intimacy and the common spaces with so much natural light and views of the city help them have a more pleasant stay”, Negre commented.