Social entities express their concern for the growing needs to attend to families who travel to Barcelona, ??from Peru, in search of a treatment that will cure their children with cancer. The parents organize collections in their country and sell everything they can to pay for plane tickets and go urgently to a hospital in the Catalan capital in the hope of access to treatment. The Department of Health of the Generalitat confirms that between June 2022 and December 31, 2023 it counted 110 cases of minors from Latin America, of which around 80% are from Peru, admitted to the oncology areas of centers sanitary facilities of the capital. The Service for Immigrants, Emigrants and Refugees (Saier) of Barcelona City Council also expresses concern about the complexity involved in managing aid to this group, people with few resources who request accommodation for long periods of time .
Most of those who arrive in Barcelona are minors suffering from advanced oncological processes, although there are also young adults. This is the case of Jeffrey, who at the age of 21 was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia with a positive Philadelphia chromosome. “He first received chemotherapy, but in 2022 he relapsed and at the INEN, the National Institute of Neoplastic Diseases in Lima, we were told that the only option was a bone marrow transplant from his brother, but it was not possible because they were not compatible. We were investigating, first I thought of Argentina and then we found out that there was a hospital in Barcelona where many Peruvians had been admitted. This was our only option, otherwise Jeffrey would die”, explains his mother, Karen, in the flat provided by the Fundació Habitatge Social de Cáritas in the Torre Baró neighborhood.
The path taken by Jeffrey is the same that dozens of Peruvian families have followed in the last year. “As soon as I landed in Barcelona I took my son to the emergency room, then I stayed in a hostel and later I went to the Saier thanks to the instructions given to me by the social worker at the hospital”, he adds. Karen asks that the name of Jeffrey’s health care facility not be made public. After a few days, he processed the registration in Barcelona and the health card. He also obtained temporary residence authorization for humanitarian reasons.
In December 2022, his mother underwent a bone marrow transplant, after three other donors were rejected. Two months later, Jeffrey felt unwell and in April the doctors informed them that there was little hope that he could overcome the disease. The father, Jair, and his younger brother, aged 13, flew to Barcelona to accompany him and say goodbye to him. But in July it improved and is now stable. All four live together in Torre Baró and rule out returning to Peru. Karen, an administrator at the Ministry of Education, works remotely.
When he was at INEN in Peru, Jeffrey met other boys in the same situation as him who had traveled to Catalonia and who told him about their experience from Barcelona. Word of mouth and social networks encourage sick people to want to save their children’s lives in Spain. “It’s hard to think that to be born in one place you have the option to live and to be born in another you die. Even though they tell you that nothing can be done about it, a lot of expectations are generated”, reflects Karen. She met five Peruvian patients at the Barcelona hospital, two of whom did not overcome the disease.
But the majority of people with cancer who travel to Barcelona are minors, most of whom go directly to Sant Joan de Déu (SJD). Every year between 170 and 200 new cases of cancer are diagnosed in Catalonia in children up to 14 years of age, 25% of whom suffer from leukemia. The Generalitat specifies that in a year and a half these 110 from Latin America were attended to, of which around 90 from Peru.
Salut has met in recent months with several hospitals, including SJD, the Clínic and Vall d’Hebron; with the consulate and embassy of Peru, and with the Peruvian Center in Barcelona to investigate what this high number of people is responding to and find solutions. The aim is for the Ministry of Health of the Andean country to tell doctors not to push their patients to come to Catalonia and that, in cases where it is the only way out, the trip to Catalonia is regulated through agreements. It should be noted that the treatments last several months and that the cost can reach 400,000 euros. “Being supportive causes a call effect and strains the healthcare system, it is difficult to find the balance”, points out a doctor who prefers to remain anonymous.
“It’s a social issue, which already started before covid; The Generalitat informed us when it detected the increase in arrivals. But how do you control immigration?”, answers Joe Torres, deputy consul of Peru. Salut claims that there is no collapse, although it is feared that word of mouth and social networks will cause an increase in arrivals that is difficult to assume.
The point is that families also require social assistance to survive away from home, as warned by the Saier, who last year allocated one million euros to pay for stays in pensions for parents and siblings of admitted children, a total of 97 people, most of them from Peru. Currently 32 are still housed by the Saier. “It creates contradictions for us, since it is not included in the portfolio of social services, we look for exits through specialized foundations, but if we do not find them, we offer them pensions”, explains Sonia Fuertes, Commissioner of Social Action of the City Council .
The fact that Peruvians, like other South American nationalities, do not need a visa to enter the European Union, makes access to healthcare easier, points out Cáritas migration manager, Elisabet Ureña. This organization has received between one and two requests for accommodation per month from this group. From the Villavecchia Foundation they also comment on the difficulties in responding to everyone. Of the seven flats intended for children with cancer and their families while the treatment lasts in Barcelona, ??one has been decided to be reserved for this group. “Hospitals ask us for support and, although resources are limited, no one is left on the streets, but we fear that if arrivals continue to increase, we will not be able to sustain ourselves. The entities work in a network and we share the answers, but the social part needs to be dimensioned better”, explains Anna Varderi, manager of this foundation.
All the sources consulted agree that the arrival of pediatric oncology patients without resources and helpless in their country is a very uncomfortable subject, difficult to communicate in order not to promote the journey of more people in desperation and also to avoid discourses arising racists
