At the Hospital Clínic Barcelona, Social Work is a key part of the comprehensive care provided to patients. At the Clínic, there is a team of over 40 professionals, making it the hospital in Barcelona with the highest number of social workers. Currently, there are social workers in all the hospital’s Services, as well as in the A&E Department, where one is present 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Moreover, they form part of the Hospital at Home team, also caring for people hospitalized in their own homes.
They are involved in the care of over 13,000 patients each year, including children, young people and adults. They work with hospitalized patients and also people treated in outpatient clinics, such as gynaecology, obstetrics, neonatology, neurology, infectious diseases, and oncology, etc. on an outpatient basis. Social Work professionals offer biopsychological care to patients and families. “They don’t work with illness but with the ill person”, explains Ester Valls, Social Work coordinator at the Clínic.
The Social Work team is also present in the outpatient clinics, where, for example, they can assist pregnant women in vulnerable situations or those who have experienced perinatal loss, as well as women who are victims of abuse or sexual violence. They can also assist patients with substance abuse, severe mental disorders or neurodegenerative diseases, among other things. Within the hospital, they work at the bedside, exploring social situations that often stem from the past, but which interfere with the patient's desired recovery. Therefore, it is a healthcare task involving the patient and the family, managing the necessary resources upon discharge and other services.
The team of Social Work professionals identify situations of vulnerability, provide advice and manage resources to guarantee the well-being of patients and their families. In fact, Social Work care is provided starting before birth and continuing until the end-of-life process, offering solutions for each stage of life. “We work with life, the acceptance of change for health reasons and death, providing support in times of grief. And all of this is carried out with a gender perspective, which allows us to offer more elaborate responses and alternatives”, says Ester Valls.
A tree of life advice from illness
To celebrate World Social Work Day, the Social Work team wants to pay a small tribute to all the patients they have cared for, thanking them for placing their trust in the professional teams. Over 100 people have offered life advice, as well as wishes and hope based on their experience of the illness with which they are living. This afternoon, these messages will be hung on a symbolic tree of life located at the main entrance to the hospital.
Ester Valls explains that, through this year’s slogan, Strengthening intergenerational solidarity for lasting well-being they wanted to pay tribute to the people they care for and aim to 'turn the tree of life advice into a space for reflection and gratitude”.
