In the wake of the horrible tragedy in Haiti and the almost relentless calls for aid (often to the Red Cross and almost always in the form of MONEY) I am reminded of my father's distrust of giving money to the Red Cross. He was more than willing to give his blood or blood components to the Red Cross and he certainly was not a stingy person but every time the subject came up between the two of us he would remind me that he didn't give money to the Red Cross. When I would ask why not he would give a less than complete answer along the lines of "when I needed their help, they weren't there". I never did hear the particulars but I still find it difficult to overcome that bias.
Being in the hospital administration business for 15 years, I had my share of run-ins with the Red Cross. Interestingly, given my father's lack of hesitancy giving blood, my first run in was in connection with the blood bank in Utah and difficulties between their blood bank and ours at the hospital. Later problems would surface based on their national management salary levels and each time my bias would be reinforced.
Now I have no reason to disparage giving to the Red Cross for Haitian relief efforts but I'll probably look for another way such as one of the following:
No comments:
Post a Comment