The dependency system sucks. The intentions of the political class to unclog the collapsed dependency system through the shock plan agreed between the central government and the autonomous communities is not working. Yes, they have lowered the waiting lists to be evaluated or to access services, but many people die waiting for a right established by law. During 2022, 45,360 people died on nursing home waiting lists, one every 12 minutes, most of them women over 80 years old. A simply shameful figure.
These are some of the data from the XXIII Opinion of the State Observatory of Dependency, drawn up by the State Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services, which has denounced that the increase in the State’s General Budgets during the last three years (3,644 million euros) has not served to alleviate the dependency situation, among other issues, because ten communities have “cashed in” and reduced their budgets in this chapter. They are: Aragon, the Canary Islands, Castile and León, Castile-La Mancha, Extremadura, Galicia, the Region of Murcia, the Regional Community of Navarre, the Basque Country and La Rioja.
At the beginning of 2023, the number of people on the waiting list (both to be assessed and to receive the service) rose to 353,965, 8,000 less than last year. The Observatory calculates that, at this rate, it would take 35 years to end this waiting list without including any more dependents.
These data are explained, in part, by the “reluctance” and “bureaucracy” established by the autonomous communities to facilitate access to the system for dependents. Proof of this is that the average delay between requesting the dependency assessment and receiving the benefit is 344 days. “A year to be cared for is unacceptable, because many of these people do not have that time,” says the head of this organization, José Manuel Ramírez.
Added to this panorama is the increasingly deficient care for the elderly, who receive low-cost services, in the words of Ramírez. Telecare is still not widespread, as was proposed in the shock plan, and home care is very limited.
Home help has an average hourly intensity of 33.45 hours per month. The most dependent (degree III) are assisted an average of 57.1 hours per month, two and a half hours per day from Monday to Friday. “A figure that is clearly insufficient if we understand that they are people who need support permanently”, points out Ramírez.
