Rescue 1122 meeting appraises annual performance

Dr Naseer says service has emerged as successful model of emergency services delivery

LAHORE: A year-end meeting was held in the city to review the performance of Punjab Emergency Service which revealed the number of people rescued by Rescue 1122 in different emergencies during 2017.

The meeting was chaired by Rescue 1122 DG Rizwan Naseer and was attended by Provincial Monitoring Officer (PMO) Riffat Zia, Emergency Services Academy (ESA) Registrar Dr Farhan Khalid, HR Head Dr Foaad Shahzad Mirza, PMER Head Faheem Ahmad Quershi, Operations Head Ayaz Aslam, Provincial Monitoring Cell Head Naeem Murtaza, Repair and Maintenance Deputy Director Irfan Naseer and other officers concerned.

Dr Naseer reviewed the operational performance of Rescue 1122 for 2017. The emergency data revealed that in total 867,621 victims were rescued in 786,137 rescue operations while maintaining its standard and average response time of seven minutes in all the districts of Punjab.

The Provincial Monitoring Cell (PMC) briefed Punjab Rescue DG that 262,837 road traffic accidents, 16,386 fire incidents, 401,736 medical emergencies, 22,091 crime incidents, 115 different types of explosions, seven bomb blasts, 1,096 drowning cases, 580 building collapses and 83,017 miscellaneous incidents took place across Punjab in 2017. Moreover, the force had rescued 5,436,280 emergency victims so far by professionally managing 4,705,328 rescue operations since the inception of service, it added.

This included 1,719,542 road traffic crashes, 2,268,310 medical emergencies, 103,149 fire emergencies, 7,185 building collapses, 169,178 crime incidents, 9,239 drowning cases, 1,412 different types of explosions and 427,313 miscellaneous incidents.

Dr Naseer said that Rescue 1122 has emerged as a successful model of emergency services delivery during the last 13 years. He appreciated all the District Emergency Officers and Rescuers for provision of timely emergency rescue service without discrimination of caste, colour or creed.

He wished the service to undertake evidence based research on the number and nature of emergencies and recommend measures to prevent further incidents and build resilient communities to make a safer Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2018.