The Foundation and the Porque Viven Foundation have presented this Tuesday the project of the first Comprehensive Pediatric Palliative Care Center of Spain. This new center, whose construction will be financed by the Amancio Ortega Foundation with a budget of €30 million and will be located in the district of San Blas (Madrid).
The center will be managed by the Porque Viven Foundation, which works to develop pediatric palliative care complementing public health servicesand whose experience in caring for minors and their families has served as the basis for designing the center.
Thus, the installationthe only one of these characteristics in Spain As its promoters have highlighted, it will allow offering comprehensive and personalized care to children and adolescents affected by complex and chronic diseases that seriously threaten their lives.
The building -whose basic project has been administratively presented this February 28 to the Madrid City Council, which has ceded municipally owned land for its construction- will have a surface area of 15,000 m2 with all the necessary spaces to cover the personalized care of minors .
Thus, it will be a day center (with 24 beds), with 30 rooms for admissions for respite, continuity of care, medium and long stays as well as an integration classroom (with 12 places) and four family apartments for farewells, intended for children in the last stage of the disease.
There will also be complementary and necessary services for the well-being of minors and their families, such as a pharmacy, therapy rooms for inpatients and outpatients (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, pool hydrotherapy, etc.), psychological care for patients and families, recreational spaces and rest (library, games room, music room), multi-denominational space, etc. All this in 5,000 m2 of gardens and outdoor spaces.
In addition, it will function as a training center for Pediatric Palliative Care High Performance Teams, with the implementation of a training program, with temporary residences in the same center.
The patients will come from the medical care services of the public health system, so in addition to minors from the Community of Madrid, the center will also be able to care for patients from other autonomous communities, given its unique nature in Spain.
Because They Live Foundation
The Porque Viven Foundation was created in 2009 by Dr. Ricardo Martino, a pioneer and benchmark in palliative care in Spain and currently head of the Pediatric Palliative Care Unit of the Niño Jesús University Children’s Hospital in Madrid. Since then, and in close collaboration with public health, they care for children and adolescents in their own homes and in hospital facilities in the Community of Madrid.
In the last five years, the Porque Viven Foundation has served a total of 1,483 people. It has accompanied 498 children and 985 family members with 17,022 direct interventions from the psychosocial care team, offering individual, family and support group care. In addition, it has cared for 378 bereaved relatives, carrying out 2,162 direct interventions by the psychosocial care team to offer individual, family and support group care.
The , created in 2001, develops projects in the fields of health and education, with special attention to the most vulnerable groups in society. Examples of this line of action are the project for the construction of Comprehensive Care Centers for the Elderly and the Program for the Implementation of Proton Therapy in the Public Health System of Spain, among others.