Law 39/2006 clearly establishes a period of 6 months to resolve the file and grant dependency aid. A deadline that, although undeniable, is being systematically violated throughout Spain. Luis Ortiga, through his personal experience, wanted to put a face to this problem. Humanize her. Because behind every delay hides a vulnerable person who truly needs it. Her 93-year-old mother-in-law died waiting for her.
The case occurred in Catalonia (although the problem is not unique to this autonomous community). In October 2024, they submitted the application to receive dependency assistance. It was not until April 2025 (when 7 months had already passed), when they were notified of the resolution of the grade (in their case, Grade I) and the recognition arrived.
At that time, the maximum legal period of 6 months had already been breached. what the law states for the entire process, when they had barely completed the first step. It was in November (they had already been there for 13 months), when they received the visit for the Individual Care Plan (PIA) by Social Services, which determines what type of help corresponds.
This January 2026, one year and 4 months after they submitted the application, the final resolution of the PIA finally arrived, the definitive letter in which a financial benefit of 180 euros per month was approved retroactively to her mother-in-law. A help that he was never able to receive in life, dying the day after this resolution.
“This is the sad reality of our grandparents and their families. This is the reality of the dependency situation,” he denounces in frustration. “In this chaotic situation, those responsible would be fired in any private company. However, our political “representatives” have the shamelessness and zero dignity to remain in their position. I am referring to the Minister and also those responsible in the Autonomous Communities who fail to meet deadlines,” he laments for ‘NoticiasTrabajo’, in a criticism that, in reality, is shared by all those who request it.
“Let it serve as a complaint and see if it can serve to take action, so that this improves,” is his hope.
New file after death: they will not collect aid until the end of 2026
The bureaucratic hell did not end with the aid resolution. From the Administration, they informed him that it would take around 4 months to collect the retroactive amount of the aid. When Luis’s family reported the death, another ‘setback’ came: the period in that case was longer and went until the end of 2026. The reason is that, when the owner dies, the file is closed due to death and a new administrative file for payment to third parties (heirs) is opened.
Even so, Luis affirms that they were “lucky” because at least the file had been resolved. Without that resolution, if their mother-in-law had died earlier, even with the PIA visit carried out, they would not have received anything. This is marked in the procedure.
A process in which, he clarifies, the treatment of the officials who attended to him was “exquisite”, exposing that they are just one more victim of this structural problem. In fact, they themselves warned him that “there was a collapse and the deadlines were not met” from the first moment they requested help.
“Honestly, you see that they are suffering from not being able to give you an answer.”
Despite this, it does not take away “the anguish” they suffered for so many months. “My mother-in-law was fully aware that her monthly pension, her widowhood, was not enough to pay the woman who took care of her, which was eating up the little savings she might have. She lived with anguish,” says Luis, explaining that if it is already difficult to accept that you need help from a third party, the economic pressure makes it even more difficult.
Irrational disconnection between disability and dependency
Luis’s family also requested recognition of disability for his mother-in-law. Another slow process. In this case, the legal period being also 6 months, 23 months were wasted. The resolution expressly stated that the applicant needed care for daily tasks and that she had a reduction in mobility. Despite this, they only recognized grade I.
Taking into account the degree of disability that had previously been recognized in her mother-in-law (65%), her family was very surprised, until the officials explained to her that the calculation levels for disability and dependency are totally different and are not related.
“It seems absurd to me,” he denounces, explaining that, today, for example, it is possible to have a moderate degree of dependency and a severe degree of disability. “In the end, they are two aids that are closely related to each other, and normally many families request and receive both.”
Shortening waiting lists is also feminism
This is what Luis Ortiga defends, explaining that the main people who suffer from this problem of dependency are precisely women, “first because they have a greater life expectancy and then because, unfortunately, due to their age, at that time many women did not work or had worked for a short time, with which they are collecting widow’s pensions that are sometimes ridiculous or are the minimum.”
Luis’ message is clear: “they are failing to comply with those most vulnerable people, with those who can no longer do anything, who are old, who are suffering from physical or cognitive problems and have very limited resources.” He is right: 32,704 people died on the agency’s waiting lists in 2025, according to the latest Report of the State Observatory for Dependency. This 2026, with data from the Ministry of Social Rights, at the beginning of the year there were already 258,167 people waiting for it.
Looking for culprits
Luis assures that the responsibility lies with both the central government, specifically the Ministry of Social Rights, and the autonomous communities: “When there are two entities that have responsibility, you are already dead.” To address this issue, ‘NoticiasTrabajo’ has contacted lawyer José Luis Sanz López, an expert in the matter. When asked whether the bottleneck is in the initial assessment or in the PIA, the lawyer is clear:
“The problem does not lie solely in the delay in assessing the degree of dependency, even if it exists. The most structural issue is found in the approval phase of the Individual Care Program. Because at this moment is when the recognized right acquires effective economic and assistance content; the appropriate benefit is specified; and the System for Autonomy and Dependency Care is truly activated.”
Like Luis, he agrees that this panorama of long waiting to obtain a resolution from the Administration “negatively impacts vulnerable families, especially those families with disabled minors, non-professional caregivers and people in situations of social exclusion.” Likewise, he also considers that it requires “an institutional response” because, “without PIA, the recognition of the degree is in practice a right without real effectiveness; this is where the budgetary insufficiency, the lack of human resources and an overload of work are confirmed.”
Inefficiency or budgetary background to contain spending?
“At the present time, both dimensions come together; on the one hand, there is a clear lack of technical personnel in municipal social services, requests for dependency due to population aging have increased, and there is poor coordination between administrations. And, on the other hand, the PIA and its implementation imply real and immediate expense,” considers Sanz López from his experience.
Why can it take longer in some communities than in others?
According to José Luis Sanz, the differences in deadlines between Autonomous Communities respond to the “different budget allocation, prioritization, digitalization and ultimately better or worse administrative organization.”
This lawyer recalls that guaranteeing adequate care is “a question of Human Rights”, highlighting that historically it has been families, “and especially women”, who have assumed this “informal support”. In this sense, it defends that home care is the option that best respects the “principle of autonomy of the dependent person”, since the vast majority wish to grow old in their own home.
However, he strongly warns that this personal preference cannot serve as a pretext for Public Administrations to limit resources, but that economic and assistance support measures must be increased in order to sustain this real autonomy. Again, Sanz reiterates that “the great collapse of the system” is evident in the dramatic delays in approving the Individual Care Program, causing frequently “the dependent person to die, without receiving a response from the administration.”
To reverse this situation, Sanz López explains that the autonomies that work “fairly well” apply streamlining measures, such as authorizing technicians to directly consult the medical and social reports without forcing the family to provide them. Furthermore, it emphasizes the vital need to prioritize the most critical files, giving immediate access to patients in palliative care, patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or people in extreme vulnerability, paying special attention to early childhood and those over ninety years of age.
“Delayed dependency affects a population sector that does not generate the media impact of other crises because it mainly affects vulnerable families”
Regarding whether, currently, enough is being said about this issue, José Luis Sanz responds that “it is not being treated with the intensity it deserves.” Because? “Delayed dependency affects a population sector that does not generate the media impact of other crises because it mainly affects vulnerable families, within their family environment.”
However, he adds that more and more people are beginning to talk about Long-Term Care (LTC) within the social sphere, “from the perspective of the professionalized model that is overcoming the family model, due to new family models, the increase in women’s access to paid work and the longevity and aging of the population,” which “makes new diseases appear, some of them strongly disabling.”
Thus, he sees a ray of hope, believing that political agendas increasingly take into account the care and needs of people in a situation of dependency, something that he calls “totally positive”: “I am of the opinion that a society that does not take care of its elderly people in a situation of dependency or its citizens in a situation of disability, is clearly a sick society.”