TAXILA: Officials in Rescue 1122 received 145,894 prank calls in 2022, which proved irksome for officials in the main control room who remained on alert round-the-clock to arrange ambulances and fire trucks in case of an emergency.

This was revealed by District Emergency Officer (Attock) Ali Hussain while talking to journalists on Monday. Rescue Safety Officer Muneeb Qureshi, Control Room Incharge Samuel James, Station Coordinator Abdul Mutalib and Majid Qureshi were also present on this occasion.

“Last year, the emergency service received 172,377 calls in which 26,483 were genuine and the remaining were pranks,” said Mr Hussain. Expressing his displeasure, he said irrelevant calls wasted precious time of the rescuers.

“The bogus phone call phenomenon has burdened our human resource and sometimes leads to a debacle because many genuine calls are then missed and not responded to on time,” he said, adding that citizens should understand the significance of emergency numbers and try not to deprive actual victims of their right to be provided timely rescue and emergency medical treatment. Mr Hussain said he had directed rescue officers to ensure quality emergency care of citizens without any discrimination within the shortest possible time.

He informed officials that 172,377 calls were received in the year 2022, of which 26,483 were emergency calls. Out of these, 26,302 victims were provided rescue services, among them 2,855 were road traffic accidents, 19,060 were medical emergencies, 581 were fire incidents.

As many as 278 were cases of violence, 33 drowning incidents, three building collapse incidents and 2,907 were miscellaneous emergencies. He further added that apart from this, as many as 3,695 patients were shifted to different hospitals of Rawalpindi due to non-availability of treatment facilities at the district level free of cost on the recommendation of doctors through Patient Transfer Service (PTS) of Rescue 1122 Attock. On this occasion, the district emergency officer (DMO) appreciated round-the-clock hard work and efforts of the rescuers and officers on the professional performance of Rescue 1122 for providing international standard rescue services to the public on time and at all times to control the increasing rate of accidents.

He emphasised on the importance of awareness and responsible behavior to create a safer society by reducing the causes of accidents and advised the public to avoid making unnecessary or prank calls to the Rescue 1122 helpline.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2023