Raed Arafat, the well-known coordinator of the emergency services in Romania, brought back into discussion today the major problem that the emergency service 112 it has and which can only be solved with very determined actions. He is talking about an emergency ordinance that is in public debate until tomorrow, which will introduce, among other things, the obligation that all prepaid cards be sold only on the basis of a bulletin or passport in Romania.
Raed Arafat says that the 112 emergency service has its activity blocked, partially, by some Romanians who endanger the lives of other people through the false calls they initiate, and who mislead the operators. Raed Arafat also talks about a Romanian who called 21.000 112 times in one year with false "urgent" calls, but was not identified, which calls into question the authorities' decision to identify people who abuse the system.
Raed Arafat: The very IMPORTANT announcement about 112 and a BIG Change
Considering that more than 70% of the calls initiated to the 112 emergency service are false or abusive, the emergency ordinance that will be adopted, most likely at the beginning of September, should stop this. The people who will have the prepaid card linked to their bulletin, or passport, will not be so tempted to call 112 with false statements, or at least that's what Raed Arafat thinks, and it should be like that.
"If the man knows that he is identifiable, he would stop doing this and if he wants to do something intentionally, we will talk about a number of people who do these things. We want to release people from 112 and deal with really urgent calls. When you call 112, you get on a waiting line, and if the operator is busy with someone calling continuously, other people with real problems are still waiting. There is another aspect: identifying the caller helps us save the person who really needs help."
Of course, good legislation must also be implemented, and as we have seen so far, even if you call 112, you have no chance of being saved, or of having the legislation applied as it should be, in your interest. Despite the repeated inability of the authorities to help people when they need it, whether they call 112 or not, soon prepaid cards will have to be bought only with the bulletin and from Romania, which is not exactly a bad idea.
"The ordinance stipulates that these data are given only when 112 is called. If the person insists on keeping his anonymity, then something is wrong. The reason you call 112 is to be rescued or to rescue another person in danger. Does the fact that we put numbers on cars in traffic mean that the owners' privacy rights are being violated? If the members of the commission proposed this, it is not mandatory that the Ordinance be adopted in its current form."
Linking prepaid cards to identification documents will make it easier to solve many complaints for committing crimes, but it remains to be seen how the law will be applied.
