The Saskatchewan NDP are questioning the provincial government on emergency wait room times across the province. This comes after a woman reportedly spent five days in a hallway in the Pasqua hospital emergency room receiving treatment.

NDP leader Ryan Meili said instances of hallway medicine have increased under the Sask. Party government.

“They said they would eliminate [emergency wait times] by 2013, they’ve let those goals creep up to the point where there’s no goal, and there was no mention of emergency waits in the throne speech,” stated Meili. “They’re not even paying attention in any meaningful way.”

On the other side of things, health minister Jim Reiter suggested work is being done to prevent this from happening.

He listed a couple initiatives the government has worked on in recent months such as adding 24 beds to Pasqua Hospital over the summer, and a capital project at Royal University Hospital to bring in 36 beds.

But at the end of the day, Reiter admitted that five days of hallway care is simply not acceptable.

“It’s not new that there are times of higher traffic in ERs and there are issues like this, but that length of time is unacceptable and we need to do better.”

While Meili agreed with the minister that it’s not acceptable, he feels more concrete action is needed to ensure this problem does not continue.

The average wait time in Regina emergency rooms in 2019 is about five and a half hours.