Women who don't take holidays
In the regions of Lleida there are more than eleven thousand non-professional caregivers, most of them women with an average age of 62 years
SolsonaThey don't take holidays even in August. They are family caregivers, mostly women, a figure as essential as it is invisible, on which a large part of the care system rests. In the Lleida region, the Generalitat has registered 11,092 non-professional caregivers (in rural areas, there are 2,934), 64.2% of whom are women with an average age of 62.
Meravelles Gonzàlez, from Lladurs (Solsonès), has been caring for her husband, Manel, for eight and a half years, ever since he suffered a stroke that left him with severe dependency, and he currently lives with micro-embolisms and the beginnings of vascular dementia. Meanwhile, she herself has undergone three coronary bypasses and has vision problems. And, despite everything, she is a 24/7 caregiver; her daily life revolves around the needs of her life partner. "The physical burden has decreased compared to the first few years, but not the mental exhaustion," she admits. Manel can wake her up continuously during the night when a doubt arises, and he always gets agitated because he doesn't accept his limitations.
In rural areas, on the other hand, caring has an added cost: the geographical location makes care, which is already difficult to guarantee, more expensive. Meravelles receives the maximum dependency benefit (grade III), which in her case is 400 euros. She decided to take on the main care because hiring external help would make her lose an hour every day in travel. Respite, in contexts like hers, is not a whim, but a necessity. She has a few hours for herself two days a week – counting her doctor's visits and the time spent shopping – thanks to someone she has hired.
It is precisely this space to breathe that, among other services, is facilitated by La Sempreviva, a care cooperative based in Bellpuig that operates in five districts of Lleida. The entity serves nearly 40 users with 14 workers and adapts to each family. "Our structure is not rigid, because we value human contact, proximity, and the ability to offer personalized responses," explains its manager, Lluïsa Puig. The cooperative notes that when a family asks for help, it is often a woman who takes the first step. Respite can mean covering a few hours so a caregiver can rest or continue working. According to Núria Clavé, psychologist and neuropsychologist at La Sempreviva, exhaustion is common among family caregivers. "Anxiety, nervousness, restlessness, and anguish appear especially when they feel they can't do everything and need to reconcile caregiving with the rest of their lives."
A resident of Tàrrega who asks to remain anonymous also cares for her husband since he suffered a serious work accident 40 years ago. She can no longer manage all the daily care he requires, which is why she receives support from the Alba Association during the week and La Sempreviva on weekends. But this doesn't mean she stops caring: "I'm here twenty-four hours a day." "I can't take any time off and I can't get sick," states the woman who has taken on the role of always carrying the burdens. However, she doesn't escape the psychological wear and tear: "I have many periods of low spirits when I wouldn't even get out of bed and I just want to cry, but then the comeback always comes. Life is like that, you can't do anything about it." Users like her celebrate being able to access services like those of the Bellpuig cooperative, "very difficult to find a decade ago".
Marina Vilaseca is the founder of the L’Arada work cooperative and promoter of the Linària community care and health association, created in 2023 by three families from Baix Solsonès and which currently supports eight families through self-management. "The most basic function of the welfare system is to protect the most vulnerable situations, and this is one of them," she remarks. Through co-payment, this entity offers home health services, practical and family support, and community activities to improve the quality of life of people in situations of long-term dependency and their families, especially in the micro-villages of the south of the region.
Very critical of the lack of imagination of town councils to remedy this, Vilaseca warns that in the rural world inequality is not just economic. It is also territorial: professionals have to travel and it is difficult to find qualified staff willing to come to farmhouses and small villages. "Such a fragile protection system is greatly aggravated in a dispersed territory, without public transport, with a high temporal and economic cost of mobility that is highly obligatory for health reasons".
Therefore, we must stop considering care a private matter in a welfare state that is essentially familistic. "The family shouldn't have to endure everything!", denounces Marina. And she focuses on a reality that affects villages: "The main reason for exodus is the lack of services for the elderly; the first group to leave is this one". Care sustains homes, but also villages. And as long as it is not recognized that they are a right and not a luxury, many women will continue to work every day of the year without a salary, without holidays and often without anyone seeing all that they do.