Families from Tarragona travelling to Barcelona for prolonged hospital treatment faced a shortage of temporary accommodation in 2025, with 259 requests left unmet by support organisations in Barcelona and its metropolitan area. The figure was 40% higher than in 2024, affecting families who may need to remain near hospitals for weeks or months.

The organisations accommodated 1,072 families and provided 86,685 overnight stays during the year, according to reporting by APD Notícies. Cases included neonatal admissions, cancer treatment and long rehabilitation programmes.

Travelling between specialist hospitals

Families from Tarragona have used accommodation offered by Fundació Jubert Figueras, the Associació de Malalts i Trasplantats Hepàtics de Catalunya, Fundació d'Oncologia Infantil Enriqueta Villavecchia and Fundació Inés Arraiz while relatives receive care in Barcelona and nearby municipalities.

  • Bellvitge Hospital in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat
  • Institut Guttmann, a neurorehabilitation hospital in Badalona
  • Residència Vila-seca, where the eDCA acquired brain injury service operates

Manuela and Albert, parents of a baby born at 27 weeks and admitted to Vall d'Hebron Hospital in Barcelona, stayed for 52 days in a Fundació Jubert Figueras flat. Manuela said: “For the first few days, you do not think about eating or sleeping.”

Paul Andrei Luca, a 19-year-old resident of Constantí, had a stroke on 26 February 2025. His treatment took him from Hospital Joan XXIII in Tarragona to Bellvitge, then to Institut Guttmann, before he received care through the eDCA service in Vila-seca.

Families describe food costs and paperwork pressure

Miriam, from Vila-seca, travelled to Barcelona after her six-year-old daughter Mía was diagnosed with large-cell lymphoma. The family received accommodation through Fundació d'Oncologia Infantil Enriqueta Villavecchia.

She said families from other Spanish autonomous communities had told her they received daily subsistence support of €35 to €50, compared with about €14 locally, an amount she considered unworkable.

Manuel, a Reus resident, and his wife were urgently transferred to Vall d'Hebron, where their premature twins were born on 30 March. Fundació Inés Arraiz provided accommodation while he dealt with administrative arrangements including obtaining identity documents for the babies and registering them as residents while they remained in hospital.

“The bureaucracy almost overwhelmed me more than fighting for the babies every day,” Manuel said.

Families who need a place to stay while a relative is receiving long-term hospital care can ask the named accommodation organisations about availability and eligibility, including Fundació Jubert Figueras, Fundació d'Oncologia Infantil Enriqueta Villavecchia and Fundació Inés Arraiz.

Reported by apdnoticies.com, APD Noticies.