Barraquer member of the Barcelona Medical Destination (BMD)

07/01/2016

The Barraquer Ophthalmology Centre is one of the health centres that founded Barcelona Medical Destination (BMA).

Barcelona 7 January 2016 -The health tourism sector wants more international patients in the city. The Catalan Tourist Board, Barcelona Tourism and the associations Barcelona Medical Centre and Barcelona Medical Agency signed on Thursday in the Sant Pau Art Nouveau Sitean agreement to promote and position the city internationally under a new tourism brand "Barcelona Medical Destination (BMD)".

Health tourism also arrives any month of the year avoiding a tourism problem: the seasonal industry, which accumulates the most visitors during the holiday months and bank holidays.

The comfort of the city and the medical and technological innovation have made the operating theatres a magnet for visitors for 30 years. This is most noticeable in the last five years. Foreign patients come to the Catalan capital to be treated mainly in the fields of ophthalmology, obstetrics and foetal medicine, gynaecology and assisted reproduction, cosmetic and reconstructive surgery, oncology and haematology, neurorehabilitation, traumatology and orthopaedics, cardiology and transplants.

The Barraquer Ophthalmology Centre

Barraquer has a long tradition. "Since early last century, Professor Ignacio Barraquer travelled to Arab countries to meet prominent patients. Today, the Barraquer Ophthalmology Centre receives thousands of foreign patients for treatment mainly of corneal, retinal or macular conditions. They come from Italy, Portugal, North Africa, the Persian Gulf and, to a lesser extent, Eastern Europe, and may even stay a month or a month and a half in the city", said Jordi Prats, director of institutional relations at Barraquer and president of Barcelona Medical Centre.

Also in Barcelona Medical Centre (BCM) in addition to the Barraquer Ophthalmology Centre are the Instituto de Otología García-Ibáñez, IVI Clinic, IMOR Institute, Clínica Tres Torres, Clínica Diagonal, Clínica Sagrada Familia, ServiDigest, Plenido Dental and Laboratorios Echevarne.