911 Emergency

[NewsWhore]

The US Embassy is providing US$600,000 to conduct a feasibility study on setting up a 911 emergency help system in the DR. The agreement was signed with the Ministry of Interior and Police. Verioska Mella, director of the Call Center 911 and Teresa Rojas, director of the Program and Planning Division at the Ministry of Interior and Police, said that at the moment the DR has only made minimal attempts at a real 911 emergency system and admits that the lines are often clogged by people using the system incorrectly. They explained that of 2,460,012 calls received in the past five months, only 9,508 calls, or 0.38%, were genuine emergency calls. The new program would include penalties for people misusing the service, such as the cancellation of a telephone line. The new service would interconnect the Police, firefighters, Red Cross, Civil Defense, and the electricity companies.

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