Palma social care row: budget up 30%, waiting lists slammed

A claimed 30% rise in social-care funding has failed to end a bitter row over waiting lists in Palma, Mallorca. At the Balearic Parliament on Tuesday, 22 September, Families, Social Welfare and Dependency Minister Sandra Fernández said the budget for care had grown and more professionals were now working in the sector. PSIB deputy Omar Lamín said the help was still not reaching people and that waiting lists remained “intolerable”.

Fernández said there would always be unmet needs in social welfare and care. But she argued that the government had issued more care decisions, cut the time needed to assess people’s needs and reduced waiting lists.

She also pointed to wider benefits, the delivery of an infrastructure plan, new services and first-time funding for adapted leisure activities.

Fernández turned her fire on Spain’s central government, saying it would not provide the promised 50% of care costs or €28 million. “Much less” money would arrive, she said, adding that the care law came with no economic funding behind it.

Lamín said the government had changed nothing in three years despite its figures and speeches.

Topics: Social affairs · Politics

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com