Next Sunday, April 28, the people of Lanzarote and La Graciosa have a great opportunity. An opportunity to have a real voice in Madrid fighting for our interests.
My name is Yone Caraballo and I was born in Arrecife 39 years ago, but I live in Costa Teguise. My family comes from "la vuelta abajo", between Uga and Playa Blanca. My father is a bricklayer and my mother is a chambermaid, a humble family but with great values. I have a 5-year-old boy, the greatest treasure of my life, whom I take to the "barracones" of the Costa Teguise school every morning. Since I was a child, I was clear about my vocation, and that was to help others. Therefore, I studied Nursing, as I wanted to be able to cure the ailments suffered by other people.
I am lucky to work in what I like the most. Since 2005 I have been working as a nurse in the Canary Health Service, and since 2007 in my second home with my second family: the Emergency Service of the Dr. Jose Molina Orosa Hospital. I am well aware of the health deficiencies suffered by all users of public health, and we workers are also victims of the system, suffering an impotence when we cannot offer a quality of care as we would like or desire due to the incompetent public and political officials.
Those who know me know that I am not afraid of anyone or anything when it is necessary to reprimand a bad management regarding our public health, or when the rights of my colleagues are violated, giving everything of myself with honesty, work and effort. That is why I took a step towards trade unionism, tired of the current model where the general interest of the workers was not defended. In these 3 years we have achieved a real change, giving transparency to the population about the health deficiencies such as the lack of the medicalized ambulance for which I fought until I achieved it; the closure of the surgery ward with more than 40 beds; the continued lack of medical personnel in the Valterra emergency room; the collapse of the hospital emergency room with stretchers in the corridors; and defending our colleagues by setting up campaign tents in front of the hospital in a great example of struggle and union as was "white camp", or, for example, paralyzing the attempted disciplinary proceedings against a fellow doctor with an impeccable curriculum in our Health Area.
I have never been and am not affiliated with any political party. I am an ordinary citizen tired of the current political model, where the most repeated words are "corruption", "indicted", etc., and where the "political figures" make it a profession for 10, 20 and even 30 years going from "chair to chair" and if they don't want me in a party I leave and invent another one with other acronyms where I can continue "living off the story". In the end you constantly see the "same political figures" as always in the different institutions but I, meanwhile, continue to take my son to a "barracón" every morning, and I continue to leave up to 7 hours of waiting for a patient in the emergency room due to the lack of personnel. Tired of all this, I see a responsibility that people committed to the social struggle take a step forward and try to improve the welfare state that we have built together.
When you cast your vote for the Senate, you are not going to vote for Pedro Sánchez or Pablo Iglesias. Nor do you think you are going to vote for Albert Rivera or Pablo Casado. Next April 28 you are going to vote for the person who will truly give voice in Madrid to the real problems that the people of La Graciosa and Lanzarote suffer without having to vote against the interests of our people, raising their hand when a state acronym or a "superior chief" of the party in Madrid so orders. I am going as an independent, I am going as Yoné Caraballo Medina, giving voice to the real problems of Lanzarote and La Graciosa, and I will only cling to that. I will continue to fight fearlessly in Madrid defending the interests of our islands, following only the feelings of my people, and following my way of being, which is none other than fighting with honesty, work and effort.
Therefore, I ask you that next Sunday, April 28, when you go to your polling station to vote for the Senate, be aware of which person you want to represent you and who will defend the interests of your land in Madrid without restrictions. Think of A NECESSARY VOTE to defend Lanzarote and La Graciosa.
By Yone Caraballo, candidate for the Senate for Nueva Canarias-Somos
