Rescue 1122 app launched

CM Buzdar says Punjab to be first province in South Asia with air ambulances

LAHORE:

Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar has inaugurated the Rescue 1122 mobile application, terming a major initiative to ensure timely response in emergency services.

The inaugural ceremony of the mobile application was held at the CM’s Office. The chief minister said the application will play an important role in providing emergency services to the citizens of Punjab on the spot.

He said more than 10 million people had so far been provided rescue services by the organisation. He said Rescue Air Ambulances would soon be launched for the remote areas of the province and Punjab will be the first province in South Asia with the service. He said that the scope of the Motorbike Rescue Service in Punjab was being extended to the 27 remaining districts.

He said the rescue services would be made available in every tehsil by June next year. The chief minister said digitalisation of the system would help to improve the provision of services to the citizens.

“The mobile app is a valuable initiative to provide timely emergency services to the citizens of Punjab. It will prove to be a game-changer as it will also help to identify the accurate location for providing services in any untoward situation. This app will also eradicate the culture of unnecessary calls besides improving the standard of emergency services in Punjab,” he said.

Read Rs190b set aside for South Punjab’s development: Buzdar

Punjab Rescue Services Director General Dr Rizwan Naseer briefed the chief minister about the operation, tracking and other features of the Rescue Mobile App. He said the Motorbike Rescue Service in major cities had responded to more than 850,000 emergency calls with an average response time of four minutes.

Meanwhile, on the directions of Chief Minister Buzdar, the Cabinet Standing Committee for Finance and Development has given approval to include five projects of the health sector in the Annual Development Programme 2021-22.

The projects will cost Rs6.58 billion. In order to ensure quality healthcare facilities for children, the government has included a project of setting up the University of Child Health Sciences Lahore in the Annual Development Programme.

The project will cost Rs4.16 billion. The university will be a state-of-the-art institution for the treatment of children where modern facilities of diagnosis, treatment besides promoting research on paediatric diseases would be ensured.

The government has also approved to set up a dentistry college in Rawalpindi at a cost of Rs240 million and a dental college in Quaid-i-Azam Medical College Bahawalpur. Approval has also been given for the procurement of a linear accelerator equipped with necessary facilities for the oncology department of Mayo Hospital at a cost of Rs840 million and MRI and CT scan machines for the radiology department of General Hospital, which will cost Rs500 million.

These schemes have also been included in the ADP. Chief Minister Usman Buzdar said that the provision of quality healthcare facilities to the people is the top priority of the government. The government during the last three years has substantially increased the budget for the health sector besides ensuring quality healthcare facilities in the remote areas of the province.

In another development, Chief Minister Buzdar took notice of an incident of setting a house ablaze and torturing women in the Farooqabad area of Faisalabad. He sought a report from RPO about the incident, issuing directives for arresting the attackers at the earliest and ensuring justice to the affected people.