Catalan social services pass by the minimum

BarcelonaMothers with dependent children who must stop working. Daughters or wives who care for parents or partners at home"Families, primarily women, are forced to sacrifice themselves, to make great sacrifices of their lives," summarizes Gustavo García, coordinator of the 2024 DESC Index, which the State Association of Directors and Managers of Social Services uses annually to compile official figures on the state of public social services. The phrase serves to illustrate the extent to which the new home care models advocated by all governments (the ministry is implementing a deinstitutionalization strategy) fail when they clash with the reality of households that must do their part to care for dependent family members with the limited public aid they receive.

The study, presented this Monday, takes a snapshot of the autonomous communities, and once again, Catalonia obtains a modest score in the ranking and is in ninth place, although for the second year it shows a slight improvement. Anyone who wants to look ahead should look at the policies of Navarre, Castile and León and the Basque Country, which occupy the podium.

In Catalonia, home care is based mainly on the telecare, a service that in some municipalities requires co-payment and in others is free. The button to connect with social emergencies has one of the highest coverage rates, with a third of those over 75 years old, 10 points higher than the national average. Apart from this aspect, there isn't much better news.

Those who want to stay at home but need extra help should arm themselves with patience, because the coverage ofprofessional home help The percentage of people paid for by public funds is 8.8%, according to the study, three points lower than the Spanish average. Furthermore, if we analyze the intensity of this service, the average in Catalonia is less than 14 hours per week, specifically 13.45 hours, while in Spain, beneficiaries receive almost double that number, 21.1 hours. In this regard, the report gives the Catalan administration a score of 0, although between 2022 and 2023 it increased by almost three hours. However, in two decades the increase has only been five hours. "Families either sacrifice themselves or institutionalize the relative if they have the money," notes García.

Few nursing home places and more day centers

The report does not mention the more than 13,000 people who were on the waiting list for a nursing home at the end of the year, and in certain areas, the centers already warn that once pre-registration is made, it can take up to three years to get in. What the analysis does point out is that Catalonia has fewer publicly funded nursing home places than the national average: 4% compared to 5.75% of places for people over 75.

Where there has been an effort is in publicly funded day centers (either through ownership of the service or through a state-funded agreement), which have gone from 0.7% of places to 2.7%, according to data provided by Imserso (the Imserso). This is a service that relieves families by gaining a few hours and also provides comprehensive care for dependents.

Regarding attention to poverty, Only 10% of families living below the poverty line in 2023 received social security benefits., basically, the guaranteed citizen income, and a six-point drop has been noted compared to the previous year once the bulk of the social shield activated as a result of the pandemic has passed. In Spain, the average is even lower, 6%, with two extremes: 58% coverage in the Basque Country and 0.3% in Castilla-La Mancha.

For the study coordinator, this gap is a clear example of "the scandalous differences in social protection" depending on the community of residence, a situation that, more than political debates, discriminates and separates the population, he criticized: "This is also cohesion."

€564 per person

The quality of services is related to budget allocations. In Catalonia, social policies were allocated €564 per person in 2023, €200 more than in 2011, while the latest Spanish estimates place consolidated investment at €548 per inhabitant. Regarding GDP, Catalonia allocates 1.58% of its wealth to social programs and services, while the Spanish average is 1.76%.

The DESC officials point to the weakness of services in Castilla-La Mancha, the Valencian Community, and the Balearic Islands, while Catalonia is also ranked among those with a "medium-low" rating.