Hospital Clínic

C Villarroel, 170

Located in the Esquerra de l’Eixample neighbourhood, Hospital Clínic is one of Spain’s top hospitals. It belongs to the Public Hospital Network of Catalonia and is housed in the same complex as Barcelona University’s Faculty of Medicine. Resident doctors are trained at the hospital, which also offers postgraduate and master’s courses, while the research work carried out there is at the forefront of Spanish medical research.

Medical pioneers

Hospital Clínic is made up of 10 centres and institutes organised according to their speciality. Healthcare includes primary care, hospital care, public and private care, the mental health unit and the transplant unit. Besides the main hospital centre, it also includes the Maternity Hospital complex, the Platò complex and other centres.

On numerous occasions the hospital has been the setting for pioneering operations in Spain, such as the first kidney transplant in the country in 1965, the first bone marrow transplant in 1976, and the first kidney and pancreas transplant in 1983. Innovation is one of its basic principles and in 2014, for example, it introduced a minimally invasive technique for heart failure operations. Some of the outstanding physicians in contemporary Catalan medicine, such as Moisès Broggi and Josep Maria Gil-Vernet, have worked at the hospital.

The complex

The building, which took 11 years to complete (1895 to 1906), was designed by Ignasi C. Bartrolí and based on the classicist trend of the time. An example of this style is the facade on Carrer de Casanova, the main entrance to the Faculty of Medicine, with its imposing portico supported by classical columns and a pediment with allegorical reliefs of Greek and Latin inspiration.