Daily Times

Year 2020 was full of challenges due to Covid-19 globe pandemic. It completely changed the pattern of living, business and service delivery. Likewise, in Pakistan, fear of isolation, death, hunger and loss of business rose in the communities. The government took many emergency steps to cope up with the challenging situation and prevent the spread of the pandemic. The role of frontline doctors, nurses, rescuers, paramedics and security staff remained highly essential throughout the year.

The Rescue Service being first response agency to all emergencies also took emergency steps to meet the Covid-19 challenge. Resultantly, over 14,000 suspected corona patients were shifted to hospitals, quarantine and isolation centres, dignified burials were arranged for over 2,400 corona deceased, disinfection of 115,993 public places was ensured, deployment of rescue paramedics in corona wards at different hospitals was made, and 50,000 ration packs were distributed among the deserving families.

This would have not been possible without specialised corona response training of rescuers from Punjab, KP and Balochistan at the Emergency Services Academy. Besides, that Pakistan Rescue Team (UN-INSARAG Certified) of Emergency Services Academy established Lahore Expo Corona Triage Centre, provided 24/7 services to over 8,000 patients and also provided assistance to public through Corona Rescue Helpline 1190.

Apart from the corona emergencies, the Rescue Service also rescued over 1.1 million victims of one million routine emergencies with an average response time of seven minutes across Punjab. These emergencies include over 300,000 road traffic crashes, over 572,000 medical emergencies, over 15,500 fire incidents, over 1000 structural collapse incident, over 31,100 crime incidents, 1400 drowning incidents, 100 cylinder blasts, and 91449 miscellaneous emergencies in 2020. Moreover, Motorbike Ambulance Service managed over 197000 emergencies in 2020 with an average response time of 4 minutes which is an achievement even internationally. Patient Transfer Service of Rescue 1122 shifted over 162000 critically ill patients from Primary to Specialized Healthcare facilities.

It is an interesting fact that well motivated over 5000 Community Emergency Response Team (CERTs) did not left Rescue Service in this time of fear, they provided assistance in distribution of food packs and awareness raising related to Covid-19. The Rescue Scouts members of CERTs also participated in inter UCs competition and best UC team of the district represented its district and exhibited disaster response skills in National CERTs Challenge held at academy and district Layyah community team won the challenge whereas, Multan and Kasur team got second and third position in the challenge. Rescue Service also imparted to over 150,0000 community members across Punjab for saving lives and promoting safety.

Last year remained a breakthrough for employees of Rescue Service as 2,669 rescue officials were upgraded into the next Scale through time scale up gradation and 1154 rescuers from BPS-1 to BPS-15 were regularised in three different phases during 2020 on the recommendation of scrutiny committee in accordance with the Regularization Act. I would like to pay tribute to the services of 22 rescuers died during 2020 including two martyred rescuers. The families of the martyred and deceased rescuers have been provided Rs 47.1 million financial assistance by the service.

The needs of community get frequently changed and emergency response requirement also got changed due to pandemic. The business related to medical items should be enhances at local level to meet such challenges in better way. The support to community should be provided through centralized distribution mechanism to avoid duplication. The emergency responders like Rescuers must be part of each contingency plan as they are the first responder and they are first one to receive any emergency call.

Over 16 years of Service to Humanity Rescue 1122 is full of achievement as Pakistan Rescue Team of Emergency Services Academy has become the First United Nations INSARAG Certified Disaster Response Team in South Asia. Rescue Service rescued over 8.9 million victims of emergencies, saved losses worth over Rs. 481 billion by timely emergency response and professional fire-fighting in over 154 thousand Fire incidents, average response time reduced to 4 minutes in 9 divisional headquarters of Punjab through motorbike ambulance service, training of about 20,000 emergency professionals from all provinces of Pakistan since inception of the service in 2004 under the dynamic leadership of founder director general of rescue service and his professional teams across Punjab .

The Rescue Service welcome New year 2021 with new commitment of service delivery initiatives like Launch of Rescue Mobile App to make emergency response system more effective as caller in emergency would have direct access of rescuers available nearest to caller area. Besides that RCC Rescue Cadet Corps shall be started to have first aider in every home and safety promotions. The significant contribution of Government of Punjab includes approval of Procurement of 250 new Emergency Ambulances, Expansion of Rescue Service in all Tehsils of Punjab and Expansion of Motorbike Ambulance Service in remaining 27 districts of Punjab. On first day of the new year the passing out ceremony has been organized for 446 rescuers trained for different districts of Punjab where Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Muhammad Basharat Raja and Special Assistant to CM Punjab Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan graced the occasion and ensured to strengthen the Emergency Service. 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 and achieve more international achievements. Ameen.

The writers is the Head of Community Safety & Information, Rescue 1122 Punjab