What is/was a "Red Aid Center"?

[BrainGlutton]

In George Orwell’s account of his volunteer service in the Spanish Civil War, [I[Homage to Catalonia,* he refers a couple of times to something called a “Red Aid Center.” He provides few details – presumably he expected his British-leftist audience to be familiar with the term. I got the impression that it was some kind of public relief or community center run, not by the state, but by a leftist political party. Does anybody know more? Do “Red Aid Centers” still exist, anywhere?

[friedo]

From this site

The International Red Aid was affiliated with the Comintern in Moscow, and it made its first appearance in Spain in 1934 in connection with the aftermath of the workers’ rebellions of October 1934. SRI’s [ Socorro Rojo Internacional ] pre-Civil War activities were to “aid thousand of prisoners, defenseless women and children,” and “organize amnesty campaigns for prisoners which saved many from certain death at the hands of the fascists.” During the Civil War, the Spanish section of International Red Aid expanded its activities in many different areas. Among the important services that SRI offered were its sanitation and medical works, which included the hygienic transportation of injured and dead soldiers from the front to one of the SRI’s 275 hospitals, the transportation of medical assistants, and the conversion of convents and churches into blood banks throughout Republican Spain. International Red Aid also set up an Orthodontics Clinic and College, led proper dental hygiene campaigns, arranged for the mobilization of dentists to the front, and provided an ambulance service. One of the most effective contributions that SRI made was in the area of provisions: the organization directed charity drives that led to the donation of 365,000 coats, boots, mattresses, and slickers; 13,500 fowl; and over one million kilos of rice, sugar, eggs, and other foodstuffs in 1937.

[BrainGlutton]

A sort of Communist Red Cross, then? Does it still exist? Certainly the Spanish organization would not have survived Franco’s victory – but were there branches in other countries?