Karamat Ali
It was a convivial instant, when first Motorbike Ambulance Servicewas launched on 10thOctober, 2017in provincial capital Lahore to provide an effective response in major cities across Punjab during peak hour’s emergencies of road traffic crashes and congested areasi.e narrow streets of downtowns where the access to an ambulances was remained an issue.
The idea of premier model of Motorbike Ambulance Service was derived from the UK, Turkey and Japan models. In this connection, the first knot was tied between two brother countries including Pakistan and Turkey on September 17, 2017 during a meeting held in historic city of Istanbul. The former CM Punjab convinced the Deputy Prime Minister Rajab Akdghan that the Government of the Punjab–Pakistan – interested to start Motorbike Ambulance Service in a largest province of Pakistan in collaboration with the Turkish Health Ministry.
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister agreed and uttered historic words, “It is our responsibility to help our brothers in Pakistan in the hour of need”. The main theme of this public welfare project was to provide quick response to picking the injured persons or to deal such emergencies in congested areas of cities where an ambulance can’t access.
The motorbikes rush to narrow streets, small roads or poorly accessed localities and the four-wheeler ambulances follow the bikes up to main roads to receive the injured from bikers to shift them to hospitals concerned.
In this regard, task for timely execution of this project was consigned to meritorious DG Rescue Punjab DrRizwanNaseer (SI) for implementation of Motorbike Ambulance Service. An approximately budget of Rs842 million was allocated to launch the Motorbike Ambulance Service in all nine divisional Headquarters of Punjab Emergency Services. The Motorbike Ambulance Service–a brainchild of the Government of the Punjab has been achieved with a remarkable success by saving 65 percent expenditures of absolute cost of the project.
Finally, the primer model of free Motorbike Ambulance Service (MAS) was launched in metropolitan Lahore on 10th October, 2017 with 900 motorbike ambulances and emergency medical technicians.
It was remained successful in order to ensure timely response to emergencies during traffic jams and in congested areas of major cities of Punjab. As a result of visionary leadership of Director General Punjab Emergency Service,DrRizwanNaseer, the Motorbike Ambulance Service had also been flourishingly lunched successfully in remaining eight Divisional Headquarters of Punjab including Lahore, Multan, Sahiwal, Gujranwala, Bahawalpur, Faisalabad, D.G Khan and Sargodha.
Now, the Motorbike Ambulance Service is not only providing medical care to ailing humanity and emergency victims but also unemployed paramedic graduate 900 youngsters were recruited purely on merit through transparent way via third party-National Testing Service (NTS) after qualifying written, physical, psychometrics and skills tests. As many as 900 Motorbikes were approved by the Government of the Punjab which was purchased according to the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules through open competitions.
All Staff were trained in Emergency Services Academy for the period of six months in purpose built training center with simulators for training in life saving skills hands on practice like Medical First Responder, Collapsed Structure Search & Rescue, training for Instructors for capacity building and career development. They also trained through the Enhancement of Emergency Response (PEER) program of USAID to conduct Medical First Responder (MFR), Collapsed Structure Search & Rescue (CSSR) courses, Training for Instructors (TFI) and Community Action for Disaster Response (CADRE) courses.
Similarly, all motorbikes were designed as ambulances in accordance with international standards under the supervision of British and Turkish health & emergency experts. These motorbikes are equipped along with all necessary medical items including Trauma/ airways kits, Pulse Oximeter, Blood Pressure Monitor, Stethoscope, Gucometer, Splints, cervical Collar, Portable Oxygen Cylinder has been provided to ensure effective service delivery and improved emergency response in congested areas especially during peak hours.
It is pertinent to worth mentioning here, the Motorbike Ambulance Service project was implemented in all nine divisional headquarters in 55 percent of total budget which is self-explanatory of its transparency and merit. The data revealed that out of all emergencies were dealt in all nine division of the Punjab, out of which around 65 percent emergencies were responded by Motorbike Ambulances which are saving a huge amount of expenditure in form of POL.
The MAS has notably reduced the burden of ambulances while provided emergency first aid at the incident site by professionally trained MAS staff, therefore no ambulance or shifting were required to hospitals, thus leading to significant cost saving and burden of hospitals. This Service has so far efficiently responded to all kind of emergencies in all nine divisions with a record response time of 4.5 minutes.
The dream based on Turkish Model has come true as Motorbike Ambulance Service has managed over 387,000 emergencies while maintaining an average record response time of four minutes in last two years in all nine divisions of the Punjab since itsinception. Out of all total emergencies, the service has responded to 195,106 road traffic crashes, 152,408 medical, 8,150 fall or slipping, 1,1648 occupational, 8,773 electric shock, burn, delivery and animal rescue, 109 cases of drowning, 6462 crime, 4533 fire cases, 195 incidents of building collapse and other emergencies.
DG Rescue PunjabDrRizwanNaseerhas shared his greetings and congratulated all officers, official and dedicated motorbikes staff on successful completion of two years of Motorbike Ambulance Service. I also pay rich tributes to all rescuers on the eve of 2ndanniversary who contributed to achieve another milestone in continues struggles in the history of the Service.
—The writer is APRO/SI at Punjab Emergency Service (Rescue 1122), Headquarters, Lahore.
