The future Clínic is reinforced as a metropolitan project with Esplugues and L'Hospitalet

The expansion of Hospital Clínic is reinforced as a future project for the metropolis of Barcelona. The city councils of Esplugues de Llobregat and L'Hospitalet de Llobregat have joined the institutional agreement to make possible what is called to be one of the key infrastructures for the Catalan capital and its surroundings. After it was decided to move it to the sports service tracks of the University of Barcelona (UB), on Diagonal, the different agents involved have taken another step this Monday for the construction of the new health campus, still without a calendar or budget.

The Department of Health, the Barcelona City Council, the Barcelona Provincial Council, the UB and the hospital itself finally opted a year ago for the university tracks, with the possibility of occupying 290,000 square meters of surface. Once the destination was determined, the neighboring municipalities have become involved in the agreement that lays the first stone for the necessary urban development that will allow the construction of the future science and health hub, where the UB Faculty of Medicine and other scientific and research facilities will also be moved.

For the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, "the new Clínic shows the way to advance towards a new Barcelona, metropolitan and Catalan ambition", in addition to defending that it is necessary to bet on "a metropolitan Barcelona without peripheries and with new centralities". Beyond the need to grow and modernize the hospital, its new location will allow reconnecting this area of the city, still to be consolidated, with L'Hospitalet and Esplugues, giving an opportunity to the forgotten Can Rigal and enabling the creation of a new neighborhood. In this sense, the transfer of the Clínic also contemplates making the extension of metro line L3 pass, currently not foreseen in the informative study, with direct stops at Hospital Sant Joan de Déu and the center of Esplugues.

The new location will also benefit existing infrastructures in the area, such as the Bellvitge Hospital and the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) in L'Hospitalet and the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital in Esplugues, framed within the Biocluster of Innovation and Health, a project promoted by the Government with a projected scope of 40,000 jobs and 7 million in turnover. "The action will strengthen the positioning of our medical and biotechnological innovation district and will be a driving force for the scientific and economic transformation of the Alta Diagonal sector," said Pilar Díaz, mayor of Esplugues, where the development of Porta Diagonal is also planned, with the construction of two large towers in Finestrelles, where Sant Joan de Déu will have a center for rare diseases.

"It will be a hub that, together with the L'Hospitalet Health and Innovation Biocluster, will position the Barcelona metropolitan area as a major reference hub in biomedicine in Southern Europe," says the mayor of L'Hospitalet, Núria Marín, who until recently had followed the progress of the Clínic's relocation as president of the Barcelona Provincial Council, now relegated by Lluïsa Moret. Despite the progress in the concretization of the new Clínic, "a long-term project," Marín does not forget to demand from the Generalitat the need to cover the healthcare needs of the northern neighborhoods of Catalonia's second largest city, who now have to travel to other municipalities to receive hospital care.

Likewise, with the Clínic's departure from the Eixample, space will be freed up in a completely consolidated district characterized by high density and a lack of green space and public facilities. In this sense, new uses are planned for the hospital's current location, as well as for the plot on Provenza street, to cover the needs for medical, educational, and fire department facilities. The inclusion of green areas is also contemplated. According to sources from the Barcelona city council, the different proposals and demands of the neighbors are currently being technically worked on, and how to make them compatible is being explored. On the other hand, the decision has been made to maintain hospital care at the Clínic's Villarroel headquarters, with the aim of covering the reference population, as well as at Platón and La Maternidad.

More than 20 years unresolved

The relocation of Hospital Clínic to gain more space is an issue that has remained unresolved for more than 20 years. Its current location, in Eixample Esquerra, became too small a long time ago, in addition to being outdated, considering it was conceived at the beginning of the 20th century. All of this prevented the growth of a leading and expanding facility, as well as the incorporation of the latest innovations and technological improvements.

After several failed proposals to move it, in February 2021, a commission made up of administrations and experts was created to evaluate the possible new locations for the center. In a process that has been prolonged, the commission indicated half a year later that the UB tracks were the best-positioned location to move the Clínic, to the detriment of the other sites that had been put on the table. The other options evaluated were the old Fire Station on Provença Street, next to the hospital's current location; the Industrial School grounds; the old Modelo prison; the Maternitat grounds, where the Clínic currently provides several services such as maternal and child care and ophthalmology; the Montjuïc grounds of Fira de Barcelona, and the Bruc Barracks on Diagonal. It was not until a year ago that the agreement between the different institutions involved, which is now being expanded, materialized.