Despite a 2014 review of the 911 system recommending a range of reforms to improve its efficiency, acting Police Commissioner David Ramnarine says the service remains problematic and he trusts that the requisite attention will be given to fix it.
Last Friday, the Private Sector Commission (PSC) voiced its concern that the emergency system, which is essential for any citizen who is under threat to be able to request a police response, is not functioning.
“People are dying, people are being hurt… The 911 system, in my view, is a national emergency and everybody from the President right down should not go to bed at night if this 911 system is not working and I am appalled that they do,” PSC executive Captain Gerry Gouveia told a press conference, where the less than satisfactory operation of the service was mentioned multiple times.
Ramnarine on Monday said that he is aware that 911 has been experiencing problems over the past few years. He recalled that the previous government had a consultant from abroad and had also engaged stakeholders, including Digicel, Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GTT), senior officers from Guyana Police Force and some other agencies, including members of the society who had deep concerns, and who still do, over the proper functioning of 911.
He said that the problem still exists to date and he noted that under the proposal for the Safe City Smart Street project, there is to be an information command centre and the 911 system would again come under focus. Against this background, he said he trusts that the requisite attention would be given to straighten out the problems.
The PSC on Friday released to reporters the findings and recommendations of a review panel that was convened by the Ministry of Home Affairs under the former PPP/C government to improve the system’s functioning in light of concerns about its performance. It is unclear what action, if any, was taken on the review.
According to the panel’s report, which was not dated but covered a period in 2014, GTT, under its licence, is required to provide the 911 service to the public free of cost as it is intended to allow persons to make contact with the agencies which provide emergency services. Aside from the police (911), the other agencies are the fire service (912) and the Georgetown hospital (913).
It was stated that the 911 service is delivered via regular telephone lines with publicly accessible telephone numbers assigned to them and the ability to call the 911 service via a standard telephone number introduces the probability of persons mistakenly calling the 911 service.
The panel, which recommended dedicated 911 lines, said that it had established that over 90% of the calls made to the Brickdam location are “hoax calls.” It noted too that the 911 system is so configured at the Brickdam Station that if a call is routed to a line in use, the caller is presented with a busy tone.
As a result, the 13 recommendations in the panel’s report included the call for a line hunting system to be put in place for all stations with multiple 911 lines as well as for the lines at the Brickdam call centre to be increased from four to 12.
GTT’s Chief Technical Officer Russell Davis, in response, told Stabroek News that GTT had officially written the Guyana Police Force (GPF) advising that based on traffic assessment it should increase Brickdam’s quantity of lines by a minimum of four. This newspaper was not told when this letter was dispatched or whether the force responded.
The panel said that it was able to establish that the 911 telephone lines in use at police stations are rented from the telephone provider with the exception of those at Brickdam Police Station, which are “controlled” by GTT and provided free of cost to the GPF.
However, Davis told this newspaper that this is incorrect as “they (the lines) are maintained by GTT as a matter of priority with the exclusion of the handsets.”
With regard to the panel’s recommendation that GTT monitor the state of all 911 lines to determine if there are any faults and report daily to the police, Davis said there is no mechanism to monitor the state of these lines other than by manual inspection. As a result, the police “need to ensure that handsets and jacks are not tampered with,” he noted.
Another finding of the panel was that all faults to the 911 system must first be reported to GTT via its 097 customer fault reporting service. Davis told Stabroek News that this is incorrect as there is a direct liaison between GPF and GTT that bypasses 097.
The panel stated that the police force does not use technological solutions, such as automated call attendants, caller ID, call waiting and call forwarding at the Brickdam location. It added that it found that GTT also does not have the ability to determine a caller’s location or identity for cellular calls made from other services providers to 911 in real time. In response, Davis said, “The real-time functionality requires infrastructure at the GPF.” He added that the company will not comment further on location capability.
The review recommended implementation of call logging hardware with voice recording, caller ID and location features. It was recommended too, that each call made be identified by telephone number and location, particularly to deal with callers unable to communicate their location.
To deal with the high number of hoax calls, the review recommended that the police implement a log of hoax calls and genuine calls made to the 911 system at all 911 termination points, that the media should be used to urge persons to desist, owners of the lines used to make these calls should be warned and that the law should be amended to make hoax calls an offence.
According to the panel, to better utilise the available resources and improve service delivery to the public, it recommended that a unified emergency response system should replace the decentralised system that currently exists. “This suggested unified emergency system should handle all emergency calls and dispatch the appropriate response,” the report said.
In addition to technical problems, the conduct of ranks answering the 911 calls has also been frequently criticised. The report said 911 operators should not be required to work shifts of more than eight hours at one time and that an appropriate number of persons specially trained to answer emergency calls as 911 operators should be hired.
After he suspected he was being targeted by robbers, Social Change Coordinator at the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination, Jairo Rodrigues took to social media over the weekend to relate his experience with a 911 operator. “Got less than a professional answer but an answer nonetheless. Progress it seems. The police officer who just didn’t seem energetic enough to do his job to make it seem as if I’m okay or he cares took a brief statement; I asked if any response vehicles will be on the avenue since they were still lingering around there. He said there’s a patrol vehicle that’s supposed to be around there. I said thank you. He grunted. I hung up,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
