Every day 25 Catalans die waiting for dependency aid

BarcelonaCatalonia is the autonomous community where the most people die while waiting for dependency aid. Between January and September of this 2026, 6,976 people have already died, that is, 25 deaths every day, while waiting to be assessed or to receive a benefit. In Catalonia, the waiting list is 261 days on average from the time the aid is requested until it is received, while the Department of Social Rights claims that they have already reduced the time to access benefits by 64 days with the deployment of the Care Plan. The State Observatory for Dependency published the report on waiting lists for the whole country this Friday, coinciding with the entry into force of the dependency law reform, which expands services and benefits and sets a maximum period of three months to resolve the recognition of dependency.

The Minister of Social Rights and Inclusion, Raúl Moreno, explained to ARA that when the legislature beganthere were about 63,000 Catalans on the waiting list with an average of 400 days to receive a benefit from the time they had requested it. For Moreno, this situation "is intolerable for a country like Catalonia," which is why they have proposed to redo the entire circuit and currently assessments are done telematically, which has allowed them to "reduce the deadlines." The department's goal is to go from 400 days to 60 by the end of 2027. At the moment, almost half of the deaths of people in the country while waiting for dependency aid are concentrated in Catalonia and Andalusia.

More than 300 days of waiting

The average wait in the dependency system is 314 days nationwide, 27 days less than in January, but still well above the stipulated 180-day deadline, currently affecting 236,736 people. This indicator is calculated based on the average time recorded from the application to the resolution of the file. Murcia, the Canary Islands, and Catalonia are the regions with the highest percentage of people waiting, while Castile and León, Navarre, and Galicia have the lowest percentage of people waiting. Of the 236,736 people on waiting lists, one third are awaiting assessment and the rest are waiting for benefits and services they have already been granted. The regions with the most people pending receipt of benefits are the Canary Islands, the Basque Country, Catalonia, and Murcia; and those with the fewest are Galicia, Aragon, Castile and León, and Navarre.

The Spanish government acknowledges that "the budget increase of 1.756 billion that has been transferred to the regions since July has not served, at least until now, to reduce the waiting list significantly or to increase the intensity of services or the amount of economic benefits".