One of the main assets for the future of the Barcelonès North area is the constant development of the medical sector, thanks to the lead taken by Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol, which has acted as a magnet for other institutions in the medical sector, linked to both health care and research. Today, the uptown area of Badalona known as Can Ruti is becoming a focal point for the development of health sciences.

Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol.

Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol belongs to the Catalan Health Institute and forms part of the Public Use Hospital Network of Catalonia. It is a high-technology university reference centre for the Barcelonès North and Maresme Health Region, with a population of almost 800,000. The hospital, which stands on the land of what was once Can Ruti farm, was opened on 14 April 1983. It was named after Joaquim and Antoni Trias i Pujol, two Badalona-born professors of surgical medicine who suffered reprisals at the hands of the Franco regime. At present it has 638 beds for acute patients (618 ordinary and 20 short-stay).

From the day it was opened, Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol showed an unhesitating vocation for teaching, and one of its aims was to accredit, at the highest level, undergraduate and postgraduate education. Its teaching programme is based on three lines: undergraduate education, postgraduate education and continuing education. The objective of training students of Medicine was consolidated in 1990 when it became a university hospital for the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Leading research projects are also developed here, with the collaboration of public and private concerns. The Research Unit was created in 1988, and in 1995 the Germans Trias i Pujol Foundation for Biomedical Research was set up to maximise and channel all the hospital’s research work. This foundation is now called the Germans Trias i Pujol Health Sciences Research Institute, which was created in 2002 to enhance the research activity of the hospital. The change of name has made it possible to incorporate several organisations into the board of trustees of the foundation, which thus includes representatives of the Department of Health and the Catalan Health Institute on behalf of Hospital Germans Trias, Badalona City Council, the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), the Guttmann Institute, the irsiCaixa Foundation and three public companies depending on the Catalan Health Service: the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO), the Transfusion Centre and Tissue Bank (CTBT) and the Image Diagnosis Institute (IDI).

The hospital currently stands in the top six in Catalonia in terms of quality and quantity of research. As regards the importance of the papers published by its researchers (as measured by citations per paper), the institute occupies second place in Spain, with 7.80 citations per paper on average, after Hospital de la Princesa in Madrid, which has 9.67. The main research areas developed at the hospital are microbiology and infectious diseases, oncology, diseases of the digestive system, immunology and AIDS, neurosciences, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, and general clinical research and diagnostic technologies.

Hospital Germans Trias has a net floor area of 85,000 square metres, distributed over three main rectangular storeys and two blocks of buildings, one of which functions as a general hospital and the other as a maternity and children’s hospital. Since its opening, the hospital has incorporated medical technology that enables it to serve the whole of its reference health region. During 2003 it acquired a new linear accelerator and a neuronavigator that makes it possible to operate on brain tumours with greater precision, and 2004 saw the addition of a new gamma chamber for nuclear medicine.

Some 2,200 people work at the hospital, which has an annual budget of over €140 million. This makes Hospital Germans Trias the biggest service enterprise in the Barcelonès North.

Badalona's Faculty of Medicine

The Teaching Unit of Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol is one of the four hospital teaching units of the Faculty of Medicine of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, together with Hospital del Mar, Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau and Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron. It was started up in the 1985-86 academic year, and is now fully consolidated.

The third, fourth, fifth and sixth years of the Degree in Medicine are taught in the unit, following the 1993 syllabus (revised in 1999). Also taught there are 58 doctoral courses and one Master’s programme, belonging to several university departments. More than 200 people study at the Teaching Unit of the hospital.

In 2005, the students have moved into new premises in one of the buildings ceded by Badalona City Council. The new Teaching Unit has three times the space it had previously within the hospital, which had become cramped as the range of theoretical and practical tuition grew. This had led to the dispersion of some physical and material resources that the unit needed. As a result, the change of premises has spelt a definite improvement for students, faculty and administrative and service staff alike. As well as extra space, the new unit features highly advanced facilities. It comprises 3 laboratories, a classroom with 36 microscopes, a classroom for clinical skills, 3 seminar rooms, 1 multipurpose classroom and 5 conventional ones, plus a lecture hall, a computer room and 9 tutorial rooms. In addition, the move has opened up the possibility of incorporating new health science studies. In this way a veritable Faculty of Medicine has been born in Badalona.

The Institute of Predictive and Personalised Medicine

Research is, together with teaching, one of the pillars of the improvement in health care to be offered by the hospital in the future. Along these lines, a new research centre has been built in another of the buildings ceded by Badalona City Council, previously occupied by Julià Minguell School.

The third auxiliary building to Hospital Germans Trias, formerly the premises of Planas i Casals School, is soon to house an institute of predictive and personalised medicine. The centre, where more than 40 researchers will work, will be one of the cores of the bioregion set up formally by the Catalan government in November 2004. BioCat, as the bioregion has been christened, is made up of 83 research groups and 43 thematic research networks. The project involves all Catalonia’s universities and research centres, the Catalan government and several pharmaceutical companies.

The new centre for predictive medicine will cost €14 million and is scheduled to open in 2006. The director of the centre will be Manuel Perucho, currently director of the Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics Programme at the Burnham Institute in La Jolla (California). The project reflects the government’s will to attract top Catalan researchers working abroad. In addition to Perucho’s, high-level research projects will also be led in Catalonia by Juan Carlos Izpisúa, who will direct the Centre for Regenerative Medicine, and Joan Massagué, who will be in charge of a centre for studying and combating metastasis. Both these projects will form part of the Barcelona Institute of Biomedical Research.

 The Guttmann Institute

The Guttmann Neurorehabilitation Institute Private Foundation is a non-profit organisation the chief aim of which is to provide medical and rehabilitative care to all people affected by a spinal cord injury or any other serious physical disability, in an integral way and with a high level of human, scientific and technical qualities.

The Guttmann Institute is the reference hospital in Catalonia for the medical-surgical treatment and full rehabilitation of people affected by a spinal cord injury, brain damage or other serious physical disability of neurological origin.

Opened in Barcelona in 1965, it was the first hospital in Spain devoted to the care of paraplegic and quadriplegic patients. Since then it has pioneered the introduction into this country of the most advanced techniques, processes and technologies in the world within the sphere of neurorehabilitation, improving the quality of life of people with a serious physical disability. Since 2002 it has occupied a new, modern hospital building in Badalona, specially designed, constructed and equipped to carry out its healthcare, scientific and educational functions.

In addition to its hospital activity, the Guttmann Neurorehabilitation Institute Private Foundation works in collaboration with other institutions in the training of new professionals, takes part in research projects in the field of neurorehabilitation, promotes the practice of adapted sports, helps to raise society's awareness of this group of people and promotes their social integration so that they may fully enjoy all the rights that correspond to them as citizens. Friends of the Guttmann Institute is the initiative through which the foundation obtains support from people, organisations, institutions and companies who make charitable contributions to help to achieve these aims.

Badalona Serveis Assistencials (BSA)

Rendering integrated healthcare services means covering all of a person’s healthcare needs. This is the challenge that drives Badalona Serveis Asistencials SA (BSA) every day, an organisation that offers public healthcare services including primary, specialised and public healthcare and home visits. With 9 centres and 1,200 professions providing services to a population of over 230,000 people in the Barcelonès Nord and Maresme districts, BSA is the municipal commitment to a quality healthcare and dependency assistance offer.

Its history dates back to 1932, the year in which the Hospital Municipal de Badalona was set up. After several decades in operation, the institution was consolidated at the end of the 1970s, with the support of the local administration, commencing its evolution towards what it has become today: an integrated healthcare organisation.

Today, BSA continues to grow and develop. Proof of this are the dependency services and the promotional and preventative actions being taken in the area of public health and the starting up of an Integrated Accident and Emergency Service. In the area of management, it has committed to social responsibility, integrating ethics into its business activities.

And all of this evolution is possible thanks to the professionals in the organisation and the permanent will to innovate, the two pillars upon which BSA is founded, making its mission a reality: offering quality care that is close to the people.

For more information consult: www.bsa.cat