Minors and adolescents treated by the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital who require rehabilitation had to move until now to the Hospital of Traumatology, Rehabilitation and Burns, close to the hospital center but outside the premises. In addition, patients had to do therapy mostly in rooms, something that La Caixa Foundation and The Ricky Rubio Foundation set out to change in 2021. Both entities then conspired to build a Pediatric and Adolescent Rehabilitation Therapeutic Area for the Children's Hospital.
Two years later, the space opened its doors in November, and has been officially presented coinciding with Hospitalized Children's Day, which is celebrated on May 13. On the occasion of this commemoration, the basketball player and the deputy general director of La Caixa Foundation, Marc Simón, have visited this new area, which consists of a pediatric gym that has play and sport as motivating elements. In this way, it invites patients to face the rehabilitation process as if it were a sports training. With this approach and with the new space, the hospital has increased the number of patients treated by 37%.
"We have gone from treating 540 patients a year to 750," explained the hospital manager, Dr. Albert Salazar. In parallel to the increase in the number of patients, the new space allows extending the service hours, in order to facilitate conciliation and patients' attendance to class.
In addition to the presence of Salazar and the head of the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Service, Dr. Judith Sánchez Raya, the presentation of the new area had another participant: young Izan Balaña, whom Ricky Rubio met when he was admitted to the Pediatric Oncology ward three years ago, due to a relapse of leukemia when he was 17 years old. The basketball player recalled that, during that visit to the hospital in 2021, he confirmed with his team that a space for child rehabilitation integrated into the same building was required: "Since then, we have dedicated ourselves completely to making this need a reality in the largest and most ambitious project that the foundation has carried out to date."
The entity allied with the La Caixa Foundation to promote a space that "will contribute to humanizing the hospital environment" and improve the quality of life of pediatric patients, according to Marc Simón. One of the first beneficiaries of the new space has been Izan Balaña, who will study a double degree in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences (CAFE) and Physiotherapy starting in September, inspired by his hospital physiotherapist: "He has been a role model for me."
The new space has 220 square meters distributed among a versatile open-plan room for inpatients and outpatients; two rooms for individual treatments; two other rooms for occupational therapy, and a second versatile room for respiratory physiotherapy. The entire space is themed around Mediterranean civilizations, and not by chance: "As the Greeks did, we have turned rehabilitation and exercise into a game, thanks to a more accessible, fun, and suitable space for children and adolescents," according to Sánchez Raya.
In addition to elements such as a climbing wall, the gym has a crane to transfer patients who require it, as well as elliptical bikes, stairs, weights, hydraulic stretchers, and mats, among other elements, adapted to the needs of children and adolescents. This new area has opened up new possibilities, such as group rehabilitation programs. Combined with the new schedules, new equipment, and new spaces, this new area allows the hospital to make a qualitative leap to position itself as a benchmark in this field at the state level, and above all to provide necessary and adequate care tailored to its youngest patients.