ALS patient struggles to find caregiver despite €1,400 offer

No caregiver for €1,400: Jordi Sabaté’s ALS struggle

A salary of €1,400 per month, plus two extra payments, for eight hours of daily care. On paper, a reasonable offer for someone needing constant assistance. In practice, insufficient: Jordi Sabaté, an ALS patient known on social media, cannot find anyone to attend to him even offering this money. His outlook, as the case unfolds, is to request euthanasia if no one covers these cares. The episode reveals an uncomfortable contradiction: a country proud of its public healthcare leaves an ALS patient negotiating his care like a hourly ad.

What is ALS and why external care fails

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ELA) is a neurodegenerative disease that gradually disables the ability to move, speak, swallow, and breathe. A point is reached where the patient depends entirely on another person and a machine for basic functions. This multiplies the care demands: it is not enough to help someone get up; vital support must be managed and drugs administered.

Here lies the first obstacle. As one forum user notes, an untrained caregiver is hesitant because a mistake could lead to negligence charges, while a qualified one raises the price. Some point out that the €1,400 offer, for eight hours a day, falls below what a professional with that profile would cost. The result is a vacancy no one fills.

The clash over public spending priorities

The issue quickly shifts to public expenditure. Some argue there is no real public aid for external care and that the State allocates high sums to other items, including questioned campaigns by public bodies. Opposing views recall that the ALS law has been rejected in Congress multiple times, which they believe demonstrates a lack of political will.

It is necessary to separate fact from fiction. That the regulation has been repeatedly rejected is cited as data. That all money spent elsewhere could fund care is a calculation circulating without breakdown. The indignation is real; the figures are debatable.

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Why does no one accept €1,400 a month to care for a patient?

According to the discussion, because the job requires technical training, is paid for eight hours rather than permanent availability, and involves legal liability for a disease that only worsens. The candidate would need to know how to handle life-support equipment. Under these conditions, it is argued that the market responds with silence.

From the institutional side, it is noted that public avenues exist: palliative care and, where applicable, regulated euthanasia. Those defending this approach argue that prolonging suffering should not be sustained with other people's money. Dissenters respond that the disease can take years to kill, and during that time, treatments that do not yet exist may emerge.

From an unfilled salary to a fundraising campaign

Faced with the lack of public response and candidates, the matter has turned into a wave of dissemination and the organization of a solidarity collection. Some demand that the money go directly to the affected person or their family, with authorization and clear accounts, antiestéticaring intermediaries. Others insist the goal is not to raise funds, but to make the problem visible and force an institutional solution.

The discussion leaves an uncomfortable portrait: a society that turns a health drama into a visibility campaign because, otherwise, the patient is left alone. And while the method is debated, the patient's clock keeps ticking.

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The outcome is not written. The disturbing data arrived early: the regulation meant to cover cases like this has been rejected in Congress several times. No calculation fixes that.