The Red Cross requests your help. Its primary function is to supply emergency support services to the community, and contribute transportation required by Nosara EBAIS (Basic Teams of Integral Health Attention). EBAIS is currently the only health center in the area, and it provides services to a population of around seven thousand people, plus a fluctuating population of five thousand. This includes the sector of Ostional belonging to the Santa Cruz Canton, which, by its proximity, requests service at the Nosara health center. This center can only handle 30 patients a day on a schedule of 7am to 4pm.

The Costa Rican Red Cross committee does not belong to the Costa Rican Social Security (Caja) nor does it belong to any state entity. It is a private Association offering support to the health sector, but chiefly lending aid in emergencies. It is overloaded with the remaining population that cannot be attended in EBAIS. A big part of this population uses the Red Cross to request transfers to the Annexation Hospital in Nicoya, which is 122 kilometers round trip from Nosara with an approximate transfer time of four hours due to the road conditions.

The committee has very few resources since we are a relatively small committee with a permanent payroll of 3 people and 15 volunteers. As such, we find ourselves overwhelmed by the demand of transfers that many times are not catalogued by the doctors as emergencies.

Some cases that are illustrative of the situation of the Red Cross.
A typical case is a Nosareño who needed attention. This person has high blood pressure and before consulting with a doctor, the patient wanted to first rule out any doubt with our committee. He asked us to confirm his suspicions since he had felt badly for week. As there is no pharmacy, and he doesn’t have a lot of time to wait for attention at the EBAIS, he decided to resort to us. Once I gave him aid he asked if he owed something. I replied that the Red Cross does not charge, that only donations are received, to which the patient responded “nothing then” and left without saying thank you.

What were the errors in this case?
1) The person neglects his own health
2) The person believes that it is obligatory for us to give service

Another case was that of a lady of foreign nationality who went to the EBAIS for a consultation. The doctor wanted to refer her to the Nicoya Hospital because she was beginning to go in to labor (having had multiple childbirths in the past) and she can speed up the process by going. The lady refused the transfer, arguing that she did not have anyone to leave her 4 children with so she can go to the Hospital on the weekend. The Doctor emphasized the gravity of giving birth at home and the lady says that it is GOD who knows when she is going to give birth, not the doctor. Why does she come for a consultation if she does not believe in the medical diagnosis when there are so many others urgently awaiting attention?

For these reasons we request your support to petition for the EBAIS to extend its schedule to 24 hours and thus be able to cover emergencies in weekend or night hours. Because there is no medical support available after 4 p.m., and none at the weekends, some emergencies have ended in deaths due to the distance to Nicoya. The Red Cross committee has been blamed in some of these instances.

Nevertheless, it is not our responsibility. We should further recognize that due to the quantity of cases that are attended to, it is almost impossible to give a quick and effective response. Owing to the high demand of emergencies, and the small contribution of donations, our vehicles are over-used. In addition there is a heavy toll placed on the personnel who lend their services to this committee. With an average of 576 pre-hospital services during the last four months of the year, the effort that is carried out to save lives and emergencies is large. Your support is really needed, and if we are to grow along with the town of Nosara to provide even the same level of service, then we will need sustained support from the area to cover our budget.

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