American Red Cross Disasters Services
The American branch of the Red Cross is the humanitarian movement within the United States that provides similar functions such as a disaster relief program and prevention of human suffering as its international sister organizations. American disaster relief is just one of its many functions of the American Red Cross. The organization helps the needy, provides communication services for the military, the collection of blood and related products for those that need it, provides educational resources about health and safety, and international disaster relief development initiatives.
All of the decisions made by the American Red Cross are done by volunteers and donations from the community help support it. It has 700 chapters and 36 different Blood Service region all across the country. About 30,000 volunteers provide mobilized services for American Red Cross disaster relief duties for people effected by 67,000 disasters annually. It is also the largest supplier of blood and blood-related products, providing them to over 3,000 hospitals across the entire nation. Even with all of these good natured humanitarian services under its belt, the American Red Cross has a history of controversies. It is not surprising, however, because when an organization performs such sensitive duties, such as a disaster relief program, chances are that they will not please everybody.
The September 11 Disaster Relief Funds Controversy:
Like many other humanitarian organizations, the American Red Cross established a disaster relief program and disaster relief funds for the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. They provided blood donations, supplies and disaster relief funds for the victims of the attack. The American Red Cross was criticized though, because they set up blood drives that were unnecessary in their disaster relief program efforts. The organization claimed that the attacks were a sign of instability and it would do good for the American people to donate blood for when it is needed. America’s Blood Centers claimed that local blood donations were sufficient enough, and as it turned out, a lot of blood went unused.
Further criticism at the American Red Cross’s disaster relief program for the terrorist attacks was aimed at its disaster relief funds initiative, called the Liberty Fund. After the disaster relief funds initiative was completed and closed after October, it was found that $547 million was received to be used for its disaster relief program. However, only 30 percent of the money was used under disaster relief guidelines for victims’ needs. The remaining money instead went to blood supply funds, programs to improve telecommunications, and programs for terrorist attack preparedness across the nation.
In addition, critics of the American Red Cross’s handling of the September 11 attacks claim that a significant portion of the disaster relief funds were given to upscale New Yorkers. They believe that these people were “traumatized” or “inconvenienced” by the attacks but may not have needed financial aid. All of these controversial decisions in the disaster relief funds resulted in New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to investigate the Red Cross.
