The average time of 4 minutes taken for paramedics to reach emergency sites does not ensure a life is saved.

Residents in Dubai would soon be trained to save lives in emergency situations, a top official has revealed to Khaleej Times. Community service centres would come up across neighbourhoods in the emirate, where residents would be trained.

The average time of four minutes taken for paramedics to reach emergency sites does not ensure a life is saved and that's the reason residents are being trained, said Dr Omar Sakkaf, director of medical and technical affairs at the Dubai Centre for Ambulance Services.

The aim is to deploy medics within the community. Residents would be trained and allowed to volunteer as medics under a new 'Good Samaritan Law' that is being drafted. "The law is almost ready and once it is passed, people can become life-savers," he said on the sidelines of the three-day Dubai International Ambulance Conference that began on Monday.

The draft federal law would allow bystanders or the general public to help those in an emergency situation without being held accountable.

Drafted loosely on the international Good Samaritan Law, the draft law has been tailored for the UAE and states that "no criminal or civil appeal shall be made to any person who has provided in good faith assistance or relief to another person who is in an emergency situation".

Dr Sakkaf also said that by 2020, medical services in Dubai would be "completely changed" as the focus would be on predicting treatment through artificial intelligence even before a patient makes a call.