First census of residential centers for the elderly prepared by IMSERSO. And Catalunya stands out for being the community with the most residences in all of Spain, 1,023, well above the second, which is Castilla y León (much less population), with 654. If compared to the regions with the most inhabitants, Catalunya widely doubles in number of centers to Andalusia (427), and Madrid (464).
But whose centers are these? The vast majority are private and those that are publicly owned, a good part are managed by private entities. According to this work, throughout Spain 75% of senior centers are privately owned, with two thirds of them having a lucrative purpose, compared to 25% of public ownership, although of these, only 14.2% are managed public.
The system of residential care centers aimed at older people in Spain has a total of 381,514 places, distributed among the 5,188 centers aimed at this group, which gives an average of 73.5 places per centre. It is the private residences that have the most places, exceeding the average of 75. "Publicly owned centers opt for more contained models than those that are privately owned," the report states. The former have a higher percentage of centers with sizes less than 50 places.
63% of residences have less than 75 places. Only 3.4% of the centers have more than 200 places but they accumulate 13.43% of the places, with the average size of this type of centers being 293 places per center.
Who lives in the residences? In the distribution by sex of those who occupy a permanent position, men represent only 31.3% compared to 68.7% of women, also in line with the greater life expectancy of women. And in terms of age, 74.5% of residents are 80 years old or older, 21.4% are between 65 and 79 years old and 4.2% are under 65 years old.
When analyzing the distribution of residents according to the recognized degree of dependency (20% of residents do not have it), the report points out that 43.2% have a level of autonomy compatible with Grade I (moderate) or Grade II (severe) recognized, while 36.7% of them have a level of autonomy compatible with a recognized Grade III (great dependency).
Regarding infrastructure, 43.2% of the rooms are for single use, 55.6% of the rooms are for double use, and the remaining 1.2% are rooms for triple or higher use. This distribution has little variation depending on the management model, the aforementioned report indicates.
In relation to the availability of outdoor space, understood as the ability to have access to an area such as a terrace or garden in the centers, there are no differences between the different types of management, with 90.7 having access to outdoor space % of residences.
79% of residential centers aimed at older people are located within the urban area, this characteristic being more common in those that are publicly owned than in those whose ownership is private.
And internet access, directly from residents' rooms, is found in 71% of centers nationwide, especially in those that are privately owned.
And the workers? In relation to workers, more than 95% are regular staff, regardless of the type of center and 86% are women.
There are more than 205,000 people working in the residences, 57% of the staff corresponds to the first level of care, the closest to the user (technical caregiver, auxiliary or geroculturist staff), which gives a ratio of 0.36 first level workers of care per resident.
