PROJECT RED CROSS PLAYA DEL CARMEN, QUINTANA ROO


The Mexican Red Cross is a Private Assistance Institution, established in Mexico for 95 years. We presently work in 465 comunities offering daily services like; Medical Consultation, Emergency Response, and Humanitarian Aid in cases of disasters as well as social and cultural programs.

In the Municipality of Solidaridad, Quintana Roo, our Institution has been offering services since 1992, with resources generated by the services that we offer. We do not receive any funding from the Government, State or Municipal. This is the reason why finding donors is of extreme importance allowing us to continue providing the much needed attention to our community.

The Mayan Riviera is a tourist destination which in the last years has had an important growth for the State of Quintana Roo and for Mexico. Playa Del Carmen is considered to be the 2nd city with the fastest annual growth in Latin America, with near 200,000 inhabitants.

The Municipality of Solidaridad has an extension of 4,245.67 Km2, which represents 8.35% of the surface of the State. Our hotel infrastructure of 24,684 rooms, allowed us to host 2,418,623 tourists that came to visit last year, producing 781.92 million dollars for our economy. It has also allowed us to have annual average hotel occupancy for 2004 of 74.14%.

At the Mexican Red Cross, Delegation Playa Del Carmen, we are worried about the great development of our community and the lack of equally growing infrastructure, facilities and equipment to attend medical emergencies in order to serve our community. At the moment we have a single doctor's office offering medical service from 9:00 to 22:00 hours Monday through Friday, two nurses in the same schedule, Our limited team of collaborators is not sufficient to meet the daily demands of medical services and ambulances due to multiple accidents on the highway.

This year we have offered:

Services
Un. of beneficiaries
External consultation
8,121
Treatments
3, 265
Services of ambulances
1,205
Special services
11, 306 beneficiaries



Considering that in this same year we have had more than 1,112 traffic accidents in the municipal section of the highway. Combine this with the fact that we take care of automobile accidents from Puerto Morelos to Punta Alen; this represents 143 km. of highway.

As we mentioned above, we are asking for aid from Institutions and/or foundations abroad that will allow us to obtain and to operate a small hospital and Urban Rescue Team. This is for the benefit of the tourists that visit us but also our community in general.

The past hurricane "Wilma" which hit our city, proved great need to have hospital infrastructure. We thank you for your invaluable support. The Mexican Red Cross, and its personnel stand ready to complete the necessary paperwork for import permissions with the Mexican authorities.

Facing the commitments that we have assumed voluntarily, will not be possible without your help. Your helping us grow will fill you with satisfaction as we hope to see it reflected in services and human resources, providing efficient and professional services.
We thank you for your generous support, all donations are Tax deductible.



Sincerely,




Andrés Bahnsen Blankenhorn
President of the local board of Directors