Rescue Service to be expanded to 70 tehsils: CM

LAHORE:Chief Minister Usman Buzdar on Monday said that the contract employees of Emergency Service Rescue 1122 would be regularised and new fleet of ambulances would be provided to Rescue 1122 and the Service would be expanded to remaining 70 tehsils of Punjab.

A function was organised here at the Emergency Services Academy to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Rescue 1122. The Founder of Emergency Services in Pakistan Dr Rizwan Naseer congratulated all rescuers especially the pioneers on completion of 15 years of the Service with dedication and providing the right to timely emergency care without discrimination to 7.5 million helpless victims of emergencies & disasters. He requested the chief minister to regularise the Rescue staff, approve service structure and restore emergency allowance as per 2017 basic pay.

Speaking on the occasion, Chief Minister Usman Buzdar congratulated the Rescue 1122 on successful completion of 15 years of emergency services and becoming the leading emergency service of SAARC countries. He appreciated the efforts regarding registration of First Search and Rescue Team with United Nations in SAARC countries. He ensured that the Punjab government would provide the all-out support to strengthen the Emergency Service and facilitate UN certification process. He said that Service Regulations would soon be approved so that periodic promotion of dedicated rescuers could take place and all issues of Rescue Service would be resolved soon.

Furthermore, the contract employees would be regularised and new fleet of ambulances would be provided to Rescue 1122 and Rescue Service shall be started in remaining 70 tehsils of Punjab. He congratulated the Founder DG Rescue Dr Rizwan Naseer and his entire pioneer teams who accepted this challenge and turned a dream into reality. Recalling his memories, Dr Rizwan Naseer said the Punjab Emergency Service was started as an Emergency Ambulance Service as a pilot project from Lahore in 2004. Keeping in view failure of repeated attempts to revitalise and modernise the existing emergency services, everyone was very skeptical about the project’s success. Therefore, the establishment of this Service was a great challenge, especially when there were no trained emergency personnel or emergency training institutes available in Pakistan and even the emergency departments of the teaching hospitals did not have trained emergency paramedics. He narrated that after third-party evaluation, which revealed this service to be exemplary in terms of training; quality care, response and professionalism, the Service has been established in all 36 districts of Punjab and expansion to tehsil level would be completed by next year.

At the end, the chief minister along with Founder Rescue Dr Rizwan Naseer and his team cut the cake to celebrate the 15th anniversary.