The Punjab Emergency Service (Rescue 1122) is the leading emergency humanitarian
service of Pakistan with infrastructure in all 36 districts of Punjab and is providing
technical assistance to other provinces. Rescue 1122 has rescued millions
victims of emergencies through its Emergency Ambulance, Rescue & Fire services
and Community Emergency Response Teams while maintaining its average response time
of 7 minutes and standards in all districts of Punjab province with an estimated
population of over 100 million.
The Punjab Emergency Service Act was promulgated in 2006 to provide legal cover
to the Emergency Services Reforms initiated in 2004 from Lahore. Start of Rescue
1122 was necessitated after failure of repeated attempts to revitalize and modernize
the old organizations mandated for emergency management. Now as a result of the
performance of Rescue 1122 during emergencies and disasters in recent years, it
has also been notified as the Disaster Response Force by the Provincial Disaster
Management Authority (PDMA) & Government of the Punjab.
The District Emergency Officer is responsible for the day to day operational management
and administration of the Service in the Districts under the supervision of District
Coordination Officer who is also the Chairman of the District Emergency Board. The
Board has become an effective organization for improving inter-departmental coordination
and prevention of emergencies based on review of emergency data. The Director General
who is the Chief Executive Officer of the organization is mainly responsible for
overall operations,monitoring to ensure uniformity & quality amongst districts,
recruitment & training, research, planning and development.
Rescue 1122 is not just providing the emergency victims with the basic right to
timely emergency care but believes in “saving lives and changing minds”.
This is vividly reflected in the mission statement of the Service which is “development
of safer communities through establishment of an effective system for emergency
preparedness, response and prevention”.
In order to establish safer communities, Rescue 1122 is implementing the Community
Safety Program which includes capacity building of community emergency response
teams, school safety program, training of citizens in life saving skills and collaboration
with Chamber of Commerce & Industries for fire and work safety. The details of Community
Emergency Response Teams and citizens trained in Life Saving Skills are attached.
Emergency Services Academy has been established for sustainable human resource
development in the field of emergency management which has been long neglected in
Pakistan. This Academy is now imparting training not only to the emergency officials
of Punjab but also to other provinces of Pakistan. The Academy imparts training
in the fields of emergency medical training, fire fighting, fire prevention &
investigation, urban search & rescue, high angle rescue, confined space rescue,
water rescue and other emergency management skills.