A circuit between Peru and Barcelona promotes the arrival of more than 200 children with cancer

BarcelonaIn 2022, the San Juan de Dios Hospital (SJD) inaugurated the Pediatric Cancer Center of Barcelona (PCCB), an international center with the capacity to treat more than 400 new cases of childhood cancer per year. That same year, a pathway was created for families from Peru, most of them highly vulnerable and desperate due to their children's dramatic situation, who came to Catalonia to receive treatment in the hospital's oncology department. Now, the Catalan Health Department intends to put an end to this: they have detected regular flows of patients to the SJD, a privately owned public center, as well as the arrival of patients of other nationalities to Vall d'Hebron and Sant Pau Hospital, and they want to regulate it. When the PCCB was launched four years ago by the Peruvian medical director, Andrés Morales, the aim was to internationalize the center and attract patients from other countries in order to fill all the beds and make it profitable. Currently, 65% of the beds are occupied. According to data from the Catalan Health Department (Salut), foreign patients represented almost half of all minors treated at Sant Joan de Déu Hospital in 2025. Specifically, of the 252 children hospitalized, 123 were born outside of Spain. However, most of the patients who have arrived since 2022 for cancer treatment are part of the public healthcare system; that is, they do not pay for treatment, as they would in a private hospital, and access services with a health card. In fact, the hospital treats almost two-thirds of all foreign pediatric patients in the Catalan healthcare system.

At the end of 2023, the newspaper The Country The arrival of these Peruvian minors, who came directly from El Prat airport to the hospital, was revealed. For two years, as shown by data accessed by ARA, the flow of arrivals has remained stable – 68 Peruvian minors in 2023, 64 and 54 in the last two years, respectively. In total, there are more than 200 patients from Peru in the last four years. These are families who go directly from the airport to the emergency room to begin treatment, and later, through social services, register their address to obtain a health card. Other families, however, manage to register and obtain a health card from Peru, using the addresses of relatives or friends. Last year, 129 foreign minors obtained a health card in less than three months after arriving in Catalonia to receive medical care, according to data from the regional health department.

Given this scenario, sources at the Catalan Health Department avoid speaking of organized "mafias" exploiting the vulnerability of these families, but they have confirmed the existence of several networks that facilitate the arrival of minors in Catalonia. "They come with everything already known, they know what documents they need and what steps to take" to enter the public system, the department explains. For the past two years, the Catalan government has unsuccessfully attempted to reduce the arrival of these Peruvian minors in desperate situations. This is not due to the resources needed to treat them—the cost is around 6 million euros—but because in most cases the children arrive with little chance of survival. Both the Catalan Health Department and the Jesuit Refugee Service (SJD) maintain that they held meetings with the Peruvian consul and ambassador, as well as with a member of the Catalan Parliament, to try to address the situation. Several teleconferences were also held with officials from the South American country's Ministry of Health, and talks took place with major hospitals to try to stem this flow of patients. As a result of these meetings, work began on an agreement to transfer knowledge and technology directly to Peruvian hospitals so that therapies similar to those used in Catalonia could be applied in their country of origin. Now, the aim is to go a step further and regulate it. Sources within the department admitted to ARA that they have not been able to prevent these patients from arriving in the Catalan healthcare system, but at least "they have contained the number of people, which has stabilized below 200 patients" annually. Furthermore, the SJD (San Juan de Déu) denies any connection between Morales and this circuit between Peru and Barcelona, ​​and maintains that this flow has in no way been promoted by the hospital itself. Desperate Families

The book was presented on February 19th. San Juan de Dios Hospital: a giraffe organization, from the hospital manager, Manel del Castillo; the director of The VanguardJordi Juan and journalist Lourdes Campuzano. The book explains how the center's internationalization was chosen to make the PCCB profitable and fill its 400 available places: professionals from all over the world come to the SJD for training and act as referrers. "In Latin America, the way to offer our services and reach patients is through referrals from local doctors, who advise patients on where to go," the authors say. However, many enter the public system. These are desperate families from very vulnerable backgrounds clinging to a last hope and seeking access to universal healthcare.

The families spend all their money, often appealing for donations, to pay for the trip. And often, as ARA has confirmed in conversations with several families, it ends tragically, because the children often do not survive, arriving in Catalonia in a critical condition. Not all of them, of course. There are success stories. Such is the case of Danita, who was one of the first to arrive in Barcelona in 2021 with leukemia. They refused to give her a second treatment in Peru, and her mother, Diana, moved heaven and earth to save her. "When the doctors told me there was nothing they could do, I was devastated. I said I would bring her to Spain. I didn't have the means, so I raised money in my country to come," explains Diana, who took her daughter directly to the emergency room at the San Juan de Dios Hospital (SJD), where she was "hospitalized immediately" to begin treatment. At the same time, with the help of social services, Diana obtained the necessary documentation to register as a resident in Barcelona, ​​find a place to live, and get a health card to receive treatment at the SJD and also at Sant Pau Hospital, where she underwent some tests. "I will always be grateful to San Juan de Dios and San Pablo hospitals," she explains emotionally. "My daughter saw all the friends she made in the hospital die. There were eight of them, and only Danita remains."

What the Catalan Health Department (Salut) aims to do is precisely that: to carefully define who should come to the hospital. For example, they should avoid allowing families to come without having submitted the child's medical history—so the Catalan hospital can validate it and determine if the treatment is viable—thus preventing unnecessary travel, unnecessary strain on the staff, and false hopes. A high-ranking official at Salut admits that they asked the hospital some time ago to adjust the messages it sends to the outside world, especially because some patients have come to Catalonia for cancer treatment who "shouldn't have come" because they were patients with virtually no chance of survival. The hospital itself explains that they have contacted the Pan American Health Organization to train Peruvian professionals and ensure they can treat children in Peru.

Participate in clinical trials

However, the same sources admit that the patients who come to SJD and incur costs for public funds "are a necessary evil" that helps transform the hospital into an international center of excellence. For medical advancements, treatments need to be effective with a much larger sample size, such as those evaluated in clinical trials. In these cases, a large sample is required, and the patients who arrive from all over the world help to complete this sample, which would be insufficient with just public and private patients to fill the center's 400 beds today.

"The problem is whether we incentivize people to come from Peru," clarifies a senior official at the Catalan Health Service (Salut), who also warns that if a patient arrives through private channels and runs out of money—because these treatments can cost up to €600,000—they shouldn't be transferred to the public system. "You keep them; it's not acceptable for them to end up in public hospitals," he adds. It's worth noting that of all the patients treated in the hospital's oncology department between 2020 and the first half of 2025, only one in five came from the private sector.