There are debates that can wait. A life, no.
After twenty years working in the out-of-hospital sector, one learns that when an alarm sounds, there is no time for ideologies, for political colors, for speeches, or for looking for culprits. There is a person who needs help. And everything else takes a back seat.
That is why it is especially painful to see how, every time a migratory tragedy strikes our shores, human lives end up entering the realm of political confrontation too soon.
Today we are talking again about deaths in the Atlantic. We are not talking about numbers. We are not talking about statistics. We are talking about people who have lost their lives trying to reach our shores.
And while some professionals prepare to deal with the consequences of a tragedy, politics begins, too often, to prepare its own narrative about it.
Some will blame some governments. Others will point to others. Competencies, resources, means, decisions, and responsibilities will be claimed. Statements will be exchanged. Explanations will be demanded.
And surely many of those questions are legitimate.
But there is something that, after twenty years of seeing emergencies from the less comfortable side of reality, I find hard to accept: that politics seems to have a greater capacity to react to a tragedy than to the circumstances that cause it.
Because when a person arrives on our shores after a journey in extreme conditions, we do not ask what party the Government belongs to.
We do not ask who has the competence.
We do not ask who approved the protocol.
We do not ask who should have sent the resources earlier. We act.
Because in an emergency, time counts. And because behind every patient there is a life that depends on someone making decisions.
That should also be the logic of politics.
I am not saying that politics should not intervene. Quite the opposite. Precisely because these tragedies have been repeating for years, we need politics. But we need politics capable of anticipating the emergency, not politics that appears afterward to explain who is to blame.
Canary Islands has been enduring a migratory reality for years that cannot be resolved solely from our islands. Lanzarote and La Graciosa are part of this reality and know firsthand the human, social, and also assistance consequences of this phenomenon.
And here is a question that should challenge us all: how many tragedies must happen for us to stop managing the consequences and start addressing the root problem?
It is not about supporting one immigration policy or another.
It is not about being left-wing or right-wing.
It is not about open or closed borders.
It is not about denying the legitimate concern of citizens, nor is it about denying the dignity of those who arrive.
It is about something much more basic.
It is about an immigration policy, whatever it may be, having to be capable of putting human life at the center.
Because those of us in emergencies know a truth that politics seems to forget too often: when someone is dying, there is no time for debate.
First, life is saved.
Then, what happened is asked.
Then, responsibilities are sought.
Then, decisions are made so that it does not happen again.
That should also be the order of priorities for those who have the responsibility to govern.
And yet, too often, the exact opposite happens.
First, the statement appears.
Then, the accusation.
Then, the response.
Then, the political battle.
And in the meantime, people are reduced to a number.
We cannot normalize it.
We cannot normalize the Atlantic becoming a grave.
We cannot normalize emergency professionals having to face the consequences of a tragedy that we have known about for years, time and time again.
And we also cannot normalize each death being used as an argument to attack the political adversary.
Citizens have the right to demand solutions. Professionals have the right to demand resources. Institutions have the obligation to coordinate. And political leaders have the obligation to be accountable.
But there is a huge difference between making politics out of a tragedy and making politics to prevent the next tragedy.
After twenty years in the out-of-hospital field, I am clear about what should prevail when there is an emergency:
the person.
Not the party.
Not the headline.
Not the narrative.
Not the political battle.
The person.
Perhaps the true political maturity of a society is measured precisely there: in our ability to discuss causes, demand accountability, and defend different positions without ever forgetting that, before being a political issue, a human tragedy is just that:
a human tragedy.
And when the sea claims lives again, perhaps we should ask ourselves less who wins the debate and much more why we are still late to the solution.
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