After years of back-and-forth negotiations and a host of uncertainties, the first images of what is to be the future Girona Health Campus were unveiled this Monday. This hospital complex will replace the current Josep Trueta Hospital and, according to institutional forecasts, should have its foundation stone laid by the end of 2028 and be completed by the end of 2031. The winning consortium in the design competition organized by Infraestructures.cat is the same one behind the Quironsalud Barcelona Hospital, the Doctor Moisès Hospital, and the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park, among other projects. This consortium, Pinearq, SLP & Brullet de Luna y Asociados and SLP & PEGI Engineering, SL., has designed a large hospital complex surrounded by trees, with green terraces and a large, car-free interior promenade. Named Devesa de Salut 21, it has received the highest score for the creation of a large amenity area with landscaped plazas connecting it to the city, and a commitment to renewable energy and bioclimatic architecture.

Twenty years ago, the then Minister of Health, Marina Geli, presented a model of the expansion of the major referral hospital for the Girona region: the Doctor Josep Trueta Hospital. The plan was for it to open in 2008, just as the economic crisis hit, but only three years later, the date was already being pushed back to 2015-2016. A decade has passed since then, along with a relocation of the facilities next to the Martí i Julià Hospital Park – better known as Santa Caterina – and a new timeline that places the opening of the new Girona Health Campus in 2031. Despite the agreement between institutions and the commitment that there is "nothing right now that will delay the schedule," doctors in Girona are questioning this timeline due to ongoing technical difficulties and "accumulated delays."

A step forward towards the construction of New Health Campus in Girona and Salt which is expected to transform the entire western urban area of the city. The Catalan government has agreed to an investment of almost 8 million euros to address urban and mobility improvements in the areas surrounding this project, which includes the Josep Trueta Hospital and a research and training complex, located around working-class neighborhoods such as Santa Eugenia, Can Gibert del Pla, and Mas Xirgu. The agreement was announced this Friday after the first bilateral commission meeting between the Catalan government and the Girona City Council.

The park is not touched. This is the name of the platform to conserve the Jordi Vilamitjana park, the great green lung of Girona that had to disappear due to the construction of the new Josep Trueta Hospital health campus. And this Sunday they breathe a sigh of relief after organizing a full day of activities on Saturday to reclaim this space in the Can Gibert del Pla neighborhood. For over a year they have been fighting against the construction of 347 apartments in this oasis in the southern part of the city, which had become the major obstacle to the project that will occupy the Girona campus, since most of the facilities are located in Salt. But now it seems there are prospects of preserving the park.

After decades of obstacles and delays, the new Josep Trueta Hospital, which will be located on the southern border between Girona and Salt, is beginning to take shape. The Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan government) plans to award the winning architectural project in 2026, while the two city councils involved are working on urban planning modifications to equip the land with roads, roundabouts, lighting, and water connections. This week, the Girona municipal government presented its proposal for the urban development of the public space surrounding the new healthcare complex, with the location of Parc Jordi Vilamitjana being the main source of controversy. The intention is for it to be approved by June 2025 and for the Generalitat to definitively validate it before 2026.

The new Josep Trueta Hospital is expected to be the major urban development project for the Girona region in the 21st century. It involves the construction of a large hospital center on the border between Girona and Salt, with cutting-edge technology to meet the needs of the entire population of the health region, as well as a research campus to incentivize research and retain local university talent. After more than 20 years of delays, unfulfilled promises, and disputes between administrations, the Salt City Council, the Girona City Council, and the Generalitat de Catalunya finally reached an agreement in the summer of 2020. final agreement on the land and location of the project. It will be built at the southern entrance to the city, on plots of land measuring around 305,000 m² (288,500 of which belong to the municipality of Salt and 16,500 to Girona), opposite the Santa Caterina Hospital, between the motorway and the Masrocs stream. As is customary with these infrastructures, the two local councils involved are responsible for providing the land and preparing the access points, while the Generalitat (Catalan government) is responsible for carrying out the work, which will cost more than €500 million.