Sombras y sombras en la aplicación de la ley de dependencia

Abstract

The aim of this study was to provide a brief overview of the most controversial aspects of the Spanish Act of Promotion of Personal Autonomy and Long-Term Care 39/2006, which, in the last few years, has led to heated debates between the state and the autonomous regions. Because of the funding problems due to initial poor planning, the decline of contributions from the Spanish Government in the last few years, including the suppression of the agreed level, and low cash collection from the user through copayment, the autonomous regions have had to provide significant economic resources to maintain this social policy in an environment characterised by a lack of transparency of the system. In addition, the regulatory reforms of mid-2012 to ease the burden on state and autonomous budgets have represented a clear setback to the spirit of the act and a loss of welfare to dependent individuals and their families. All these circumstances have contributed to a widely heterogeneous picture in the territorial implementation of the act, with clear differences in waiting lists, abuse in the granting of cash benefits in some regions, and differences in the number of applications for benefits and services.

Women Caregivers Under the Spanish Autonomy and Dependence System: A New Social Underclass?

“…During this period, numerous jobs were destroyed, the working conditions of workers became precarious, and poverty and social inequality increased and the Welfare State did not give a proper answer to these social dynamics. Statistics and research show that the economic subsidy of care (hereinafter, cash-for-care) was the most granted resource (SAAD, several years; Correa & Jiménez-Aguilera, 2016; Deusdad, Comas-d’Argemir, & Dziegielewski, 2016; Martínez-López, 2017) in the family environment for the support to non-professional caregivers since the implementation of the SAAD. Despite this, the law itself states, specifically article 14, that services of the agency’s catalogue will be a priority and that cash-for-care will be exceptional.…”

The impact of demographic change in the balance between formal and informal old-age care in Spain. Results from a mixed microsimulation–agent-based model

“…As Noble et al (2012) suggest, not all older people will have savings to pay for private care services. In addition, in present-day Spain there are insufficient resources for this demand to be covered by social services, a problem that was exacerbated after the adoption of austerity measures implemented by the government and affecting health-care provisions that had been stipulated by the 2006 Dependency Law (Correa and Jiménez-Aguilera, 2016;Deusdad et al, 2016).…”

Dependency and Care: Perspectives from the Point of View of Professionals Assessing Situations of Dependency in Spain

“…The implementation had to coordinate the participation of state, regional, and local actors, together with private companies, all of which did not always share the same interests [26]. This development has caused important situations of inequality in waiting times for the dependency assessment by the professionals designated by the administration, for Individualized Care Plans, and for receiving benefits and/or services-between different Autonomous Regions [2,27] and within a region. All this is reflected in the interviews conducted with the assessors from the region of Extremadura.…”