Demand for accommodation for patients and families travelling to Barcelona continues to grow

Organisations providing accommodation for patients and relatives who must travel to Barcelona for medical treatment delivered 86,685 overnight stays in 2025, offering essential support to families facing serious illnesses far from home.

Among these organisations is the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Foundation, which for many years has provided free accommodation apartments for patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation and their caregivers near Barcelona’s leading hospitals. These apartments enable families to focus on the patient’s recovery without having to bear the significant financial burden of a prolonged stay in the city.

According to data presented jointly by Barcelona’s patient accommodation organisations, 1,072 families were supported in 2025. However, 259 accommodation requests could not be met due to a lack of available resources, representing a 40% increase compared with the previous year. These figures highlight the growing need to strengthen accommodation services for patients and families who must relocate temporarily to access specialised treatment.

One of the beneficiaries of the Josep Carreras Foundation’s accommodation programme is Manel, a leukaemia patient from La Jonquera, who had to move to Barcelona with his wife while undergoing a bone marrow transplant. During the eleven months of treatment and recovery, they stayed in one of the Foundation’s apartments. According to Manel, having access to this resource made a tremendous difference: “You not only have a place to stay, but also support and people you can rely on. It became a second home for us.”

At present, the accommodation organisations operating in the Barcelona metropolitan area provide a total of 55 accommodation facilities and 156 rooms, resources that are becoming increasingly important as advances in medicine lead to more complex treatments, transplants and therapies requiring patients to remain close to specialised hospitals for extended periods.

At the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Foundation, we remain committed to ensuring that no patient with leukaemia or another malignant blood disorder is denied access to the best possible treatment because of financial or geographical barriers, while helping families navigate these challenging journeys with the support they need.