On Friday, September 22, I debuted as a parliamentarian for the islands of Lanzarote and La Graciosa in the Health Committee of the Parliament of the Canary Islands. A true honor and responsibility for a nurse who had been proudly caring for people at the Doctor José Molina Orosa University Hospital for 18 years.
I took advantage of the first intervention to express my gratitude and admiration towards my colleagues in the health area of Lanzarote and, in general, to all the colleagues of the Canarian Health Service. They are the real reason why I got into the political scene, having previously worked as a union member for five years.
My time in the union coincided with the first term of government of the current president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo. From 2016 to 2019, healthcare workers experienced situations of real tension, with workloads inappropriate for an advanced public system and with cuts in materials that forced us to be resourceful. Those were hard and complicated years that all healthcare workers still remember.
I remember some situations of union struggle against the cuts, the lack of services or the paralysis in the implementation of the oppositions. A group of healthcare colleagues met with Clavijo in 2018 in the heat of the struggle for a fairer OPE, where we could see that the CC model was distant from reinforcing the public service. Massive referrals to private hospitals, service overtime and lack of resources.
One of the struggles I am most proud of is having obtained the second medicalized ambulance for Lanzarote. Previously, this island had a single medicalized ambulance located in Arrecife. Emergencies in Playa Blanca, unfortunately, were to pick up the deceased since the distance did not allow for rapid assistance. Fortunately, this ambulance is currently in the southern town saving lives.
Therefore, healthcare workers and public health activists already know the arts of the conservative governments of CC and Fernando Clavijo. We know what model they have for public health. We have experienced their policies, their pressures and also their silences and contempt in our own flesh. We also know the use they make of management and senior management positions. The abuses of power to place members of their party far from the healthcare reality.
But all this would not take us by surprise if it were not for a fact that changed everything. Just two years ago, the Canary Islands and the world were plunged into the deadliest health crisis we have ever remembered. The Covid-19 pandemic showed us how vulnerable we are as humanity and the importance of having well-equipped and forward-thinking public systems. The pandemic confirmed that the public, in crisis situations, is the safeguard that societies have in a world that revolves around the capitalist logic of "everything has a price". Remember, if not, that it was the capacity of the states that incentivized the extraordinary and rapid research of the vaccine. Or the effective vaccination mechanism where criteria of defense of the common good and not of cost and benefit prevailed. Have we really forgotten?, what would have happened if the management of the pandemic had been carried out with an outsourced, private and underfunded health system?; what would have happened if citizens, instead of having their vaccine for free and universally, had to buy it? I don't even want to imagine it.
For all this, and because I believe in a Canary Islands where social justice and a strong welfare state prevail, that is why I am concerned about the first steps of this conservative consortium between CC and PP. This government of the Canary Islands has acquired the ultra-liberal postulates of governments as controversial as those of Ayuso in Madrid, with a tendency to weaken the presence of the public in favor of outsourcing or, simply, privatization. No one is unaware of the situation that has been experienced in recent years in the capital of Spain, with stressed health services and healthcare workers in a constant struggle to dignify the profession. I hope this does not happen in the Canary Islands.
In this scenario I begin my first journey as a public representative in the Parliament of the Canary Islands. As I promised the citizens of Lanzarote and La Graciosa, I will perform my duties as I have been doing in my work as a healthcare worker and union member. First, from the philosophy of the politics of care and, second, with the same strength and stubbornness in favor of equality, social justice and public health.
Because I will be new to this thing of politics, but I already know some of those who sit in the blue armchairs of the government.
