The Emergency Services Rescue 1122 welcomes the year 2023 with new humanitarian initiatives to promote road safety, building safety and community safety in Punjab. Before going into the details of 2023 initiatives, it is pertinent to mention that the year 2022 remained full of the historic initiatives to provide right to emergency care to all citizens of Punjab and strengthen the Emergency Services.
The Government of Punjab approved expansion of Emergency Service to all Tehsil and Motorbike Rescue Service to all districts of Punjab to provide emergency services at the doorsteps of the citizens of Punjab. After 2015 last year 258 ambulances and 1350 Rescue Motorbikes have been added in the emergency fleet. The Punjab Community Safety Building Regulations 2022 were issued under the Punjab Community Safety Act 2021 to protect citizens in high-rise buildings.
The Government of Punjab also approved the service structure and rescue risk allowance to raise the morale of the rescuers and strengthen emergency service. Accordingly, the first rescue officers’ promotion course was started in Managers Training Centre of Emergency Services Academy. Last year, Punjab Emergency Service rescued over 1.7 million victims in more than 1.5 million emergencies, which is a 21 percent increase in the number of emergencies compared to the year 2021.
These emergencies include 368,486 road traffic accidents, 26,436 fire emergencies, 937,563 medical emergencies, 36,418 falling from a height, 52,625 delivery cases, 10,091 electric shock emergencies, 15940 occupational injuries, 1,323 drowning emergencies and 9,857 animal & bird rescue emergencies while more than 73,167 miscellaneous accidents have been responded.
The Motorbike Rescue Service maintained a response time of 4 minutes in 346,981 emergencies, and the Patient Transfer Service transferred 173,673 critical patients from primary healthcare to specialized healthcare hospitals equipped with modern facilities in a timely manner. Besides routine emergencies, Rescue 1122 provided flood emergency response and rescued over 80,000 victims and provided transportation to over 127,000 people from the flood-affected areas to safe places in South Punjab. The Emergency Services Academy trained 2128 rescuers of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, GilgitBaltistan, Baluchistan and Sindh.
The specialized rescue courses have been organized for middle managers and other national and international organizations including Aga Khan Foundation Syria Team.Emergency Services Academy organized the 11th Rescue Challenge to ensure uniform standard of emergency services across Pakistan. 16 teams participated in Rescue Challenge and Rescue Team Gujranwala won the first position.
In order to enhance disaster preparedness at local level, 6th International Volunteer CERTs Challenge has also been organized in which 59 Teams participated including team from Sri Lanka, Pakistan Army, Embassy and Academia.
The Community Team Layyah won the Challenge, District DG Khan team got second position and the team of District Kasur Government Associates College for Women got the third position. The remarkable initiative of making Tehsil Bhawana of Chiniot district a model village was appreciated.
At the request of Sri Lanka in 2022, Regional Instructors of Emergency Service Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response PEER established PEER courses in Sri Lanka through ADPC and developed instructor teams of Disaster Management Center Sri Lanka.
While Secretary Emergency Services Department Dr. RizwanNaseer Representing Pakistan at the World Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion Conference 2022, presented a pre-hospital emergency care model for congested cities and suggested road safety challenges and prevention of traffic accidents.In 2023, the Emergency Service is committed for the implementation of the Community Safety Act and to further increase the missions of volunteers through the Rescue Cadet Corps and establishment of Community Emergency Response Team.
The journey to serve humanity is still continued. May Allah give strength to all of us to maintain the standard of Service and serve humanity with same passion? Ameen
The writer is Head, Community Safety &Information Rescue Punjab and can be reached at
