Since I started my public working life as a nurse in the Canary Islands Health Service, I was aware that in a public system that is sustained thanks to the contribution of citizens, I would have to demand the best from public and political officials in order to provide care to our patients with the greatest possible guarantees, in addition to having labor justice for professionals and colleagues.
It was October 2015 when we were immersed in a labor conflict as a result of unfair examinations for all the staff of the Canary Islands Health Service. We couldn't believe what they wanted to impose on us. Professionals with more than 15 years of work, whom the administration demanded to pass an exam to continue with their contracts after 15 years without calling any public employment offer due to the negligence of the rulers of the Ministry of Health, while the rest of the CC.AA offered every two years giving stability to their employees. In short, giving stability to a quality public health system.
That day I lost my fear. I lost my fear of rulers and health officials to claim what was fair, since those people had the obligation to respond for their workers and try to secure a job well done and quality in the Canary Islands public health, protecting the continuity of my colleagues. It was then when, even without having the protection as a Union Delegate, a group of brave people and I came up with the idea of setting up a "White Camp" in front of the doors of the Doctor Molina Orosa Hospital, a movement never before experienced by our guild on the island, where we set an example of unity, peaceful struggle and sacrifice for our rights, extending the feeling to islands such as Gran Canaria, Tenerife and El Hierro. Meanwhile, the unions looked the other way as if that problem was not with them.
I couldn't believe what was happening. Thousands of professionals from the Canary Islands health service facing the worst crisis in our history in terms of job stability, and the unions, who were supposed to have defended us in the Sectoral Table, looked the other way. It is then when I see the opportunity to change things. And how could I change them? Well, by belonging to a union and fighting from within with all the guarantees of union protection.
With a group of fighters we ran for the union elections of the Lanzarote Health Area and we won. That's where a change in unionism began, although some don't want to admit it or recognize it. The Lanzarote society began to be aware of the true deficiencies of the island's health system: a single medicalized ambulance on an island of more than 150,000 inhabitants; a ghost floor with beds unopened that had been under construction for years; that for a heart attack the only thing we have in our hospital is a "pipe unblocker" for the coronary arteries, since we do not have a hemodynamics unit, etc... And these are a few examples. On the other hand, we demand more transparency from the administration, communication with workers, better health conditions for users..., always setting an example without a total release, since we do not understand doing unionism simply from the offices, but from the knowledge and first-hand experience of the labor problems that we also suffer as workers.
Since then, 5 years have passed where I have met many people and had good and bad experiences. Where I have gained enemies, but also many more friends, and where I feel proud of the work done fighting for improvements for my colleagues without fear, leaving a mark, facing the administration on numerous occasions. I have never hesitated to publicly denounce in my statements to the media or networks everything that harmed users and workers. This is the case of this pandemic, where we suffered the shortage of protection measures, feeling like mercenaries who were sent to war without vests, helmets, or weapons.
The time has come to take a break, catch my breath to gather strength and let colleagues take over, which I am sure they will do wonderfully following the philosophy of a great union and family such as CSIF.
Some of the administration will start to be calmer when they find out that I am leaving unionism. However, I will always be a unionist because I have it in my veins, in my genetics, in my way of being. I will always publicly denounce with total freedom of expression all those injustices that with public money affect my colleagues and users. I will never let my guard down. A simple document will not prevent me from feeling unionism. I will continue fighting from my person as a simple citizen and nurse of the public system, to achieve better health conditions for our users, such as the radiotherapy unit, the implementation once and for all of the hemodynamics service, and soon the delivery of more than 10,000 signatures collected to place a medicalized helicopter in Lanzarote with which to gain time and gain life. My great dream would be that Lanzarote, by its own right, would have the public health services that we deserve. Someday it will be achieved, I am sure of it.
To my colleagues of the Canary Islands Health Service I want to say thank you. Thank you for your support in all these years, especially in difficult times such as the beginning of the pandemic. Your affection and recognition, because without you I would not have been able to resist so many battles along the way. Don't worry, I'll be back, someday I'm sure I'll be back with the same or even more strength than at the beginning, in addition to greater wisdom and experience. For those who I have had to fight battles on the other side of the administration I want to send them a last message. Tell them that I have never had anything personal, that I have always known how to differentiate the union from the personal, but that my place and my role was this, to defend my colleagues at all costs. I'm sorry if at some point they may have felt offended for being transparent or defending injustices, it was never my intention to attack or offend anyone. In short, you are also colleagues, with the only difference that during a period you occupy positions of trust and responsibility in the Health Area.
To finish, I want to mention a phrase from Karl Marx that says:
“Workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”
¡¡THANK YOU!!