LAHORE: The Punjab Emergency Service Rescue 1122 completed 11 years of service delivery in Punjab on Wednesday. More than 3.6 million emergency victims have been rescued in different emergencies.

Rescue 1122 Director General (DG) retired Brig Dr Arshad Zia congratulated all rescuers, especially the pioneers, upon completion of 11 years of providing timely emergency care without discrimination to millions of victims of emergencies and disasters and also proactively working for community-based disaster risk reduction. He hoped all rescuers would maintain the standards of emergency service with hard work, commitment and dedication.

The DG said the establishment of the service was a challenge because there were no trained emergency personnel or emergency training institutes in Pakistan. Even emergency departments of teaching hospitals did not have trained paramedics, he added.

He further said the service had been established after facing all challenges, including recruitment of the right staff and training on modern lines, acquisition of appropriate land for rescue stations, its construction, development of international standards ambulances, rescue and fire vehicles in Pakistan, acquisition of toll free emergency number 1122 and wireless frequencies, development and establishment of vehicles tracking and call monitoring systems for control room for effective monitoring.

Dr Zia said after third-party evaluation, which revealed the service was exemplary in terms of training, quality care, response and professionalism, Rescue 1122 was established in all 36 districts of Punjab, while its expansion to tehsil level was underway.

The DG concluded by saying that Rescue 1122 was just an idea 11 years ago that had turned into a reality of an effective system of emergency preparedness, response and prevention. He said although an international standard service was available for rescue of emergency victims, the alarming increase in number of avoidable traffic accidents and fire incidents necessitated the need to work together for prevention of such emergencies to build a safer Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2015

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