Both Francisco José Cambra, Archi (64 years, two daughters) and Josep Santacreu (65 years, three daughters) are doctors. The former has its second home in a reference hospital, Sant Joan de Déu, in Esplugues de Llobregat, where it directs the pediatric department. The second, who today presides over the Chamber of Commerce, channeled his vocation towards management: he was manager of public hospitals and the helmsman of the insurance company DKV.

When asked why they became doctors, they both look at 14-year-old Nisha, the prettiest smile in Pakistan who will one day be a doctor. This chronicle of hers will be published with her and the nurse who accompanied her, Zeenat John, already in her country, after almost four months in Barcelona and Esplugues de Llobregat. These are the scenes of a great little miracle called Cuida’m that has saved the lives of more than 400 boys and girls.

The last link for now in that long chain is Nisha, who has eight siblings (five girls and three boys, between 7 and 24 years old). She was born in a village, about six hours from Peshawar. Her parents are very humble and could not offer her the care she needs. She is in a wheelchair, she has a congenital malformation, a spinal cord injury and a neurogenic bladder, in addition to a reflux problem with urine, which returned to her kidney.

She was doomed to countless infections; and, in the long run, dialysis. Or much worse, judging by the poor or non-existent health infrastructure in rural Pakistan. Nisha will not be able to walk and she will have to catheterize herself periodically to empty her bladder, but two operations by the team of Dr. Luis García Aparicio, from the urology service of Sant Joan de Déu, have saved her kidneys and have consolidated her smile.

An endless number of wills have converged in the Cuida’m program, which created this hospital 20 years ago with the complicity of companies such as DKV and NGOs such as Infancia Solidaria. Dr. Cambra, coordinator of the initiative, says that it is “a modest job,” although hundreds of families in developing countries who saw their children die from very serious illnesses, but who can be cured here, do not think the same.

Thanks to donations, the program takes care of the operations, stay and care of about 20 children a year with the intention of returning them to their countries “healthy or with greatly improved health.” A modest job? There are on average 20 children each year, more than 400 since it all began, who have been reborn in Barcelona. The majority come from Latin America, Africa and Asia and, to a lesser extent, from Eastern Europe.

Solidarity is in the DNA of the Sant Joan de Déu hospital, which welcomes donations and collaborations from companies. Its manager, Manuel del Castillo, would like to quintuple the capacity of the Cuida’m program to attend to the hundred requests that are received each year: malformations, heart diseases… How did one of these requests arrive from Peshawar to Esplugues de Llobregat?

Nisha is in a hospice founded 60 years ago by an Irish priest, Father O’Leary, and a Catalan nun, Sister Antonia, a loved one by Josep Santacreu, who last year went on a humanitarian visit to Pakistan with Óscar. Camps, by Open Arms. He wanted to see the center of his family, now run by nuns from a French order. There she was dazzled by the smile of a girl in a wheelchair…