Ethical Issues With The American Red Cross

When an American hears the words “American Red Cross”, most of them think of big, blood drive busses or 1900’s nurses in baby-blue uniforms. A better way to define the Red Cross, however, would be to say that they are a humanitarian and disaster relief organization that was founded by Clara Barton, a self-taught nurse during the American Civil War. Barton started the United States chapter of the Red Cross on May 21st, 1881, after working with and appreciating the efforts of the International Red Cross in Europe during the Franco-Russian War. In the years after its founding, the organization grew and became a donation-funded, National effort with several locations in each of the fifty states. Even though collecting and selling blood through
blood drives is one of the Red Cross’s most important (and most well known) “branches”, there is much more to the Red Cross. Besides blood drives, the American Red Cross states on its website that does its best to provide disaster relief, train and certify volunteers, support military families, and perform international services. However, the American Red Cross has also been criticized because of questionable numbers relating to donations and aid, and their distribution of money and volunteers. Overall, the American Red Cross is a humanitarian organization that, even after considering its successes, ultimately needs to begin acknowledging their errors, improving the planning of their relief programs, and must start releasing accurate monetary information to earn back some of their donors’ trust, and to be at its most efficient.
One of the most discussed, major issues with the American Red Cross is the fact that, in some interviews, executives portray the organization as much more helpful and perfect than they actually are, while also misleading donors about where their money is going.
In one case, when asked to speak about some of the Red Cross’s operations in other countries, an executive said that she thinks that the Red Cross is “near flawless…” (executive Gail McGovern, NBC News). However, her statement was far from the truth. A relatively current example of a flawed Red Cross operation was when, in 2011, the Red Cross sent over one-hundred volunteers to Haiti to build homes for those affected by the magnitude-seven earthquake the previous year. When one considers the fact that they were over a year late to assist an area that needed their help after a natural disaster, already stands the first example of how the Red Cross is not at all “flawless”. During their time in Haiti, supposedly building homes for the poor, they received over half a billion (five-hundred million) dollars in donations that were supposed to be used specifically to build hundreds of homes for the affected Haitians. However, by the time they left, the Red Cross only built six homes, and zero homes were built in Campeche, Haiti, which caused donors to question what happened to their money. After a detailed investigation, it turned out that most of the money donated to the Red Cross actually goes toward fundraising and their blood drive efforts instead of their relief efforts, which is not made clear to donors before they donate. This has caused some irritation and distrust among the people who have donated to the Red Cross, because they thought their money was going directly to the relief
effort.
A second controversy surrounding the Red Cross is its questionable use of volunteers and relief vehicles during Hurricanes Isaac and Sandy. The controversy began with the simple fact that the Red Cross said that volunteers were in certain areas, but they were never seen. After a while, it became known that some relief trucks were told to drive around in order to be seen, which would make it look like they were giving aid to hurricane victims. However, these trucks were empty, which was a waste of the drivers’ time, and a misuse of resources. In other instances, these same trucks were pulled from the relief program and used to serve as the background for news stories and new press conferences which, again, pulled resources from the relief effort.
There have also been complaints about planning and lack of leadership when attempting to relieve victims during the said hurricanes. According to statements former volunteers, they were often given vague directions on where to go and, with no leader, all had different priorities. Other instances of poor planning and leadership included disabled victims sleeping in wheelchairs, sex offenders mixed in with children, as well as the Red Cross having to throw out over ten thousand meals because they did not know where to bring them.
Despite all of the scandals and criticisms surrounding the American Red Cross, they have still given shelter and food to hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. They hold blood drives that save the lives of thousands of people every year, and they support America’s military families. They have also provided EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) training, as well as babysitting certification, and CPR and swimming (safety and technique) classes.
In conclusion, the American Red Cross is an organization that tries to help people in need, but whose higher-level management often gets to wrapped up in looking good for the press. Even though the Red Cross has made several mistakes in clarity and preparedness, they are not an organization that should be one hundred-percent written off as “bad”. Instead, they are an organization that needs to think about whether their priority is publicity, or helping underprivileged people and disaster victims around the world.