The Minister of Social Policy, Fabiola García, has announced that her department will increase in 2027 by "more than 100 million euros additional" the allocation of the Care Voucher, reaching 277 million euros, a aid directed to elderly people who "want to be cared for in their homes."
As explained by the minister, it is a support formula "that more and more elderly people in the community demand" who wish to continue residing in their homes and receive care from a family member. "There are more than 43,000 people" who receive it," she pointed out.
García made these statements this Wednesday in the Parliament of Galicia, during the debate of an interpellation raised by the deputy spokesperson of the BNG, Olalla Rodil. The nationalist deputy criticized that the Xunta reserves in the budgets of the next year "more money for this charity check" than for the direct management of elderly residences.
"Dependents should not have to choose between charity checks or waiting lists. Well-being cannot depend on the sacrifice of generations of women in the absence of services," Rodil denounced, who demanded "a different approach, based on rights, based on professional care." "And that is guaranteed through the expansion of services," she emphasized.
In response to these accusations, the minister defended that the priority of the Xunta is to ensure care for all dependent people in Galicia and, especially, to do so "always respecting their preferences."
"Nowadays there are more people accessing the system or receiving a benefit than before they did not have," she indicated, to emphasize that the Galician Government intends to do it "respecting people's freedom to choose." "And the majority preference of elderly people is to be cared for as long as they can in their usual place," she argued.
During the session, Rodil also insisted that in the budget project presented by the Xunta "there are no specific items" for the new residences announced by the regional government. "Tell me in which item the budget for those new residences comes, because right now not a single item," she reproached, before assuring that the commitments of the PP are "smoke," with less credibility than "the last minute of the washing machine."
In her rebuttal, the head of Social Policy asked the deputy spokesperson of the BNG to "read the budget better," reminding that "last year she was wrong about the Friol Autism Center," saying that there was not a single stone and the center was already built and now also equipped." "So, read the budgets well so you don't mess up this year as well," she concluded.