PES arranges special corona training course for Rescuers

The specialised corona training course, organised for Rescuers of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, concluded at the Emergency Services Academy here on Friday. Punjab Emergency Service Director General Dr Rizwan Naseer suspended all training activities after the declaration of corona emergency by the government. However, he said that it was not fair to send the Rescuers in the field for screening, handling and shifting of suspected or infected corona patients without specific training.
Therefore, a specialised short corona training course was organised for emergency services of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan before the suspected surge in corona emergencies in Pakistan.
The closing ceremony was organised following the new corona rescue drill protocols, which included social distancing, use of facemasks, gloves and overalls worn by all participants. This training of 336 rescuers of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 144 rescuers of Balochistan was conducted in small batches in an open environment to avoid contact.
In this ceremony, the families and friends of the Rescuers and guests from outside were not invited. While addressing the participants, Dr Rizwan congratulated them on their successful completion of training and becoming part of the Rescue family. He said that unfortunately, they should have to immediately go and manage the challenge of coronavirus emergencies. He hoped that after this training they would be able to safely respond to these corona emergencies.
He also said that service has rescued over 8 million victims of emergencies since its inception in October 2004. The Emergency Services Academy is providing technical assistance to other provinces for the establishment of this lifesaving Emergency Service in their respective provinces. “Now, emergency services are being provided to the citizens of other provinces,” Furthermore, Emergency Services Academy has trained over 18000 Rescuers for Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit Baltistan, Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Baluchistan and Aman Foundation from Karachi. Emergency Services Academy has become a platform for providing professional training to rescuers of all provinces of Pakistan and even South Asian countries can get benefit from this training facility.
Earlier the rescuers demonstrated their professional skills of dealing with Corona emergencies, daily safe practices drill and safe & professional handling procedures of suspected Corona victims, social distancing from others, wearing of personal protective equipment like a face mask, goggles, gloves and overall, responding to suspected victims and safe decontamination of rescuers and emergency equipment.
DG Emergency Services also appreciated the efforts of Dr Khateer DG KPK and Mr Aziz Jamali DG Medical Emergency Response Center Baluchistan for the expansion of these life-saving Emergency services in their respective provinces and distributed performance awards to best Rescuers of the Course. I hope all trained rescuers going into the field shall assist their government to deal with these Corona emergencies and emphasized on the safe handling of suspected victims.