There were no medical services, no further training: In 2021, the pandemic also had the district association of the Bavarian Red Cross firmly in its grip, as the annual balance sheet shows.
And yet the volunteers clocked up a whopping 26,000 hours of volunteer work.
Not only here on site.
District - It was the second year in pandemic mode for the Bavarian Red Cross in the district - and so the balance of the district standby line for 2021 is an unusual one: Because all internal activities had to be reduced to a minimum, there were operational regulations for helping in times of a pandemic, Courses could almost only take place online - if they took place at all.
And yet: the approximately 460 members of the standby teams in the district were not idle.
In total, they worked 26,000 hours on a voluntary basis, reports district head Thomas Bieringer: “More than 1,500 of them in support of the corona tests alone.”
The classic medical security services at events, on the other hand, were canceled in rows: the BRK was only deployed 25 times in 2021.
In addition, it provided 95 other services and supervised 26 blood donation appointments, at which a total of 3,247 people agreed to donate blood.
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Leading the district association since last year: (from left) The second deputy on-call manager Renate Schweiger, district on-call doctor Dr.
Wilhelm Fischer, Thomas Bieringer and his deputy Michael Limbrunner.
© BRK
In addition to the activities that could be planned, there were numerous other assignments in emergencies.
The "helpers on site" groups led by the BRK alone went out 894 times and worked 3,578 hours.
However, the volunteers of the BRK had the largest assignments outside the district.
After the flood disaster in Rhineland-Palatinate at the end of July, ten helpers from the "rapid action group for catering" lent a hand for three days on site, during which they looked after around 1,800 people affected.
In October, a total of 20 volunteers from the district rushed to Geretsried to help with a major evacuation for ten hours.
In the same month, several rescue dog teams were involved in the search for the missing Julia near Furth im Wald - the eight-year-old was finally found by a forest worker and ultimately rescued.
And the helping continues seamlessly this year.
"For 2022 we expect a clear approximation to the times before the pandemic," Bieringer, who was elected head of on-call duty in 2021, looks ahead.
"With the lifting of almost all corona restrictions, we are already receiving significantly more requests for medical security services." The BRK is also planning to set up a "helpers on site" group in Huglfing.
And a lot of time should now be invested again in training.
Bieringer announces: "We are working intensively to close the qualification gaps for helpers, managers and executives that have arisen in the past two years due to the cancellation of the courses."
You can find more current news from the region around Schongau at Merkur.de/Schongau.
