UNOCHA chief meets DG Rescue-1122

LAHORE: The country head of United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), Pakistan, Ms Heli Uusikyla met Punjab Emergency Services (Rescue 1122) Director General Dr Rizwan Naseer and discussed progress of Disaster Response Force (DRF) that is in process of getting INSARAG (International Search and Rescue Advisory Group) International External Classification (IEC) as first Medium Search and Rescue Team of Pakistan and SAARC region.

The DG thanked the UN delegation for the service. As Mr Ted Mentor has been and instrumental for standardizing the emergency response procedures and building up medium level response teams. He further requested to facilitate with technical expertise required for this certification as we are in final stage of this process and hopefully shall be classified in 2018 after submitting the Comprehensive Portfolio of Evidence (CPOE).

Ms Heli Uusikyla witnessed different ongoing training activities in the field of fire safety, search and rescue, emergency medical, water rescue and flood management etc on modern training simulators as per international guidelines and standards and appreciated the quality of training being imparted to rescuers by the Emergency Services Academy.