MADRID / LAS PALMAS DE GRAN CANARIA, Jan 10 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Canary Islands have a deficit of 8,075 places in nursing homes to reach the ratio of 5 for every 100 people over 65 and only 41.5% have public funding, according to a report by the Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services , prepared with figures from the Imserso and collected by Europa Press.
In total, the Canary Islands have, at the end of 2020, 9,979 residential places – no new ones have been created in the last two years -, of which 4,137 are public and 5,842 private (58.5%).
Spain has a deficit of more than 75,000 places in nursing homes and at the end of 2020 there were 5,529 residential centers in Spain, 13 less than the previous year, 1,451 of them public (16 more than the previous year), and 4,078 private ( 29 less than before the pandemic). As for the places, there were 389,677, “only 643 more than a year before.”
The result, according to the Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services, is “a greater deficit of residential places year after year.” In 2014, 53,103 places were missing to reach the 5% ratio recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) – five places for every 100 people over 65 years of age – and in the last year this deficit reached 75,699 places.
In addition, taking into account the demand that currently exists unattended, the report details that it would be necessary “immediately no less than 62,000 places” residential for people with Severe Dependency (Grade II) or Large Dependents (Grade III).
According to official IMSERSO data, corresponding to November 2021 and collected by the Association, there are 91,729 people on the waiting list with Grade II and III, to which must be added 67,000 pending assessment and who will foreseeably obtain one of those degrees, which is that brings the number to 158,729 people.
The association estimates that four out of ten of them would demand a residential service in a public square, arranged or in provision linked to that service. Hence the forecast that between 62,000 and 63,000 residential places would be needed just to meet the demand for the waiting list, the so-called “dependency limbo.”
By autonomous communities, the report highlights that those with the greatest deficit of places are Andalusia, Valencian Community and Galicia, with 30,236, 22,860 and 14,331 respectively. Meanwhile, in five communities there is an excess of places, particularly Castilla y León, with 17,541.
On the other hand, the report reveals that almost two out of every three residential places for the elderly are publicly funded, 63.2% of the total, which includes places in public centers, arranged places in private centers, and places that are financed with the provision linked to the service.
This percentage, according to the Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services, has been increasing “slightly” in recent years, so that at the end of 2020 they accounted for 2.65 per 100 people over 65 years of age.
The communities with the highest coverage of publicly funded places are Castilla y León and Castilla-La Mancha, followed by Aragón and Extremadura. On the contrary, those with the least public funding places are the Canary Islands and Murcia, which do not reach 1.5%.
For its part, Madrid is the only community where exclusively private places have a greater coverage (2.5%) than those with public funding (1.86%), according to the study.
The Association also highlights as “significant” that one year and nine months after the start of the pandemic, the number of residential places in the Dependency Care System has not yet recovered: in February 2020 there were 171,119, and in November of 2021, 169,399 that is, 1,720 fewer places.
In addition, it regrets that the Ministry of Social Rights presents an ‘Agreement on common accreditation and quality criteria’ in residential matters without incorporating a memory of the investments necessary for the coverage of centers or their costs.
