Social welfare under construction

In the province of León a population of over 14,000 people who are dependent on others are the candidates to get benefits from the law passed by the Government a year ago. Over 80% of those are elderly who need some kind of help to go through the day. More than 2,000 should be attended before the year ends. On 30th November a year will have gone by since the passing of the Law of Promotion of Personal Autonomy and Attention to Dependent People, and on 1st January it will be the first anniversary of it coming into force. By then, over 2,000 extremely dependent people in the province of León should be covered by this welfare «umbrella». The fourth welfare pillar, which will be introduced gradually until 2015, advances at different speeds in each Spanish community since, as Benedicto García -a member of the Confederation of Associations of Relatives of Alzheimer¿s Disease- points out «it is a paradox that it is a national law that the Spanish communities have to set in motion.» In the province of León out of the almost 3,000 applications that have been sent from April to get these benefits, not even 10% have been officially valued.