Red Cross Service
The Red Cross Service (RKD) has been a department of the Swiss Red Cross since 1903 .
It consists of around 250 women with qualified medical training who, in the Red Cross tradition established by Henry Dunant, do voluntary military service to support the medical service of the Swiss Army .
organization
The members of the RKD (AdRKD) are divided into units, troops and staffs of the army. They are trained, equipped, deployed and paid by the army. With a few exceptions, they have the same duties and rights as the male members of the army medical service. In particular, they enjoy the protection of the Geneva Conventions.
The AdRKD provide refresher courses with the troops, they will occur within the framework of the coordinated medical service (KSD), but also in extraordinary situations (severe epidemics or major disasters). They wear army uniforms and badges and receive income compensation. The grade designations correspond to the military ones, but are provided with the addition “RKD” (for example “Wm RKD” for Wachtmeister).
Colonel RKD Brigitte Rindlisbacher has been in charge of the service since February 2006 (not identical to the VBS general secretary of the same name).
qualification
Swiss citizens who are at least 18 years old and at most 38 years old can volunteer for the Red Cross service. A prerequisite is professional training in health care or in the areas of international law, pedagogy or adult education (for teaching about international humanitarian law and the Red Cross principles).
history
The mass internment of foreign military personnel in Switzerland during the Franco-German War showed that the civil Swiss Red Cross (SRK) and the Swiss army are mutually dependent on each other. Therefore, from 1903 on, private nursing training, which was under the patronage of the SRC, was subsidized from the federal treasury. In return, the SRK had to make two thirds of its medical personnel available to the army medical service in the event of mobilization .
Initially, only nurses were assigned to the Red Cross service. Later women from pharmacy, medicine and alternative medicine were also encouraged to join the Red Cross Service. From the Second World War , girl scouts, office women, teachers, lawyers, etc. were also deployed in the military hospitals, where they provided support services for the hospital administration.
Web links
- Official website of the Red Cross Service
- Red Cross service as a department of the Swiss Red Cross
- Ordinance on the Red Cross Service (VRKD)
literature
- 100 years of Red Cross service in the Swiss Army - women implement Henry Dunant's idea. Publishing house Huber Frauenfeld 2003.