Far from improving, the application of the Dependency Law in the Canary Islands continues to worsen, with a new increase in the time for resolving cases. The archipelago has the highest rate in Spain, with a wait that now reaches 1,080 days, doubling the data of the next community, which is Andalusia, with an average wait of 544 days.
In addition, the Canary Islands is one of the five Spanish communities where that figure has increased, along with the autonomous city of Melilla. And again, the Canary Islands also leads that ranking, with an increase of 99 days. It is followed by Castilla y León (76), the Balearic Islands (47), Cantabria (45), Madrid (31) and Melilla (27 days).
The data, which corresponds to last June 30, has been collected by the Imserso, through a group of experts that has evaluated the dependency care system, commissioned by the Ministry of Social Rights. The problem, the report says, "translates into slow access to the necessary services, and also into the situation popularly known as the 'dependency limbo', which includes a diversity of situations in which there are people with recognition of dependency, but without access to benefits or services".
After the Canary Islands and Andalusia, the deadlines are longer in Murcia (478 days) and Extremadura (389), all four above the average (385), and also in Galicia (365), Catalonia (324) and the Valencian Community (316).
The communities with the longest times have their main delay in the assessment phase, although the personalization deadlines are also excessive, with the exception of Catalonia, which has longer deadlines for personalization than for assessment.
The report also points out that two of those communities, precisely those with the longest deadlines (Canary Islands and Andalusia) also have a significant number of people with an Individual Care Program (PIA) that is "not effective".
The experts point to the main causes of the delays as the lack of human resources, especially technical assessment personnel, and the rigidities derived from a lengthy, inefficient administrative procedure with a strong tendency to get stuck as soon as something fails, which becomes a serious problem when errors or insufficiencies appear in the documentation.
Also, the difficulties in ensuring an assessment visit in situations of change of residence, hospitalization or other absences; the lack or insufficient computerization of the process; the problems of access and exchange of information between administrations; and the lack of availability of the necessary services.
