The deputy for Lanzarote and La Graciosa and insular president of Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista (NC-bc), Yoné Caraballo, has demanded this Thursday in parliamentary headquarters from the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands, Esther Monzón, that she "act with firmness and responsibility to guarantee dignified and fair working conditions for the **health emergency technicians of the Canary Islands**, in line with their training, responsibility, and professional category".Caraballo denounced the situation of "precariousness" that the healthcare transport collective suffers, "subjected for years to deficient management, to the lack of control by the administration and to the abuses of an employers' association that profits from public money while keeping workers in undignified conditions".The Canarian recalled that health emergency technicians "are not stretcher-bearers or drivers, but qualified health professionals, recognized by law and essential for the functioning of the public health system," and stressed that "it is unacceptable that many of them barely reach the minimum interprofessional wage or suffer salary cuts while the concessionary companies continue to receive public funds."
“The Government of the Canary Islands cannot look the other way. The Ministry of Health has the obligation to demand that employers respect the professional category of emergency technicians, guarantee decent salaries and scrupulously comply with labor conditions,” stated the deputy.
Likewise, Caraballo focused on the expiration of the current tender for healthcare transport and demanded a structural solution: "we are facing a contract that expired on December 31 and a failed model. Either a new tender with real guarantees for the workers is promoted once and for all, or the Ministry must be brave and directly assume the management of healthcare transport, as already happens in other Autonomous Communities".
From NC-bc they insist that the dignification of sanitary transport "is not only a labor issue, but a problem of care quality and respect for an essential service for the Canary Islands citizenry".
“Enough is enough of ambulances in poor condition, of insufficient units, and of professionals forced to chain jobs to be able to live. It's time to put an end to this model and to defend those who save lives every day on our islands,” Caraballo concluded.
