False Emergencies Waste
Money And Time Of The
Red Cross
Each week the Cruz Roja
(Red Cross) wastes
thousands of dollars in
attending false
emergencies, some like
the case Monday night of
a young woman who called
the emergency service
threatening to jump off
a bridge in Pavas.
The Cruz Roja, as usual,
responded quickly to the
emergency and in front
of a curious crowd, she
climbed down from the
bridge on her own and
the emergency was over.
The woman was identified
as the same woman who
months earlier had
climbed a high tension
electrical tower wasting
hours of emergency
personnel time before
she came down,
Similar incidents have
been reported as common
by emergency authorities
by people looking for
attention.
The cost of the incident
with the young woman set
back the Cruz Roja some
¢200.000 colones, but
worse is that the crew
attending the false
emergency was not
available in the event
of a real emergency.
Jesús Escalona, a Cruz
Roja official, said that
two units were
dispatched to the
emergency while other
areas are left
unprotected. "The
harmful reality is that
attending false
emergencies placing
those who really need
out attention at risk",
said Escalona.
Escalona added that some
weeks they up to five
similar calls, including
calls that are clearly
not an emergency, like
being asked to take a
patient to the hospital
for a doctors
appointment.
Rocío Espinoza, a
psychologist for the
Cruz Roja, added that
the emergency service
has a list of names and
locations by people who
are crying out for
attention, by calling in
an emergency to mobilize
people and resources.
What these people are
actually doing,
according to Espinoza,
is unnecessarily waste
the resources of time
and money of the
emergency service. |
