UPDATED: Sask. gov’t scrapping plan to eliminate ER waits by 2017

REGINA – It appears the Saskatchewan government is quietly backing away from a plan to eliminate emergency room waits by 2017.

The promise was first made by Premier Brad Wall in 2012 and has been repeated by government officials several times since, including Health Minister Dustin Duncan. A 2014-15 provincial health care planning document says “no patient will wait for care in the emergency department” by March 31, 2017.

“It’s hard to make progress when you don’t identify the target you want to achieve.” – Health Minister Dustin Duncan

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The Opposition NDP raised the issue at the legislature Tuesday, citing a July 2015 government report that says achieving zero waits in emergency departments “may not be feasible.”

“For the government to just bury this in an annual report and walk away from it after they made so much hype, so much noise about it, it’s an admission of failure,” said NDP leader Cam Broten. “It shows this is not a priority to truly get fixed for Saskatchewan people.”

The report also says a goal of admitting at least 85 per cent of emergency patients within five hours in 2014-15 was “very aggressive” and could not be done without significant improvements to the health care system.

“It is clear wait times in the emergency department are a symptom of poor patient flow through the entire continuum of care,” the report states.

Duncan admitted the zero-wait goal won’t be met, but made no apologies for the government being overly ambitious.

“It’s hard to make progress on a problem when you actually don’t identify the target you want to achieve, so that’s why the promise was made.”

Duncan says a revised target hasn’t been finalized, but suggests it would make Saskatchewan among the leaders in Canada for ER wait times.

Another section of the report says there were nine critical incidents (actual or potential loss of life, limb or function) in 2014-15 as a result of patients not receiving care in time. From 2005-06 to 2013-14, the average was less than one per year, with a high of six in 2012-13.

Emergency room waits in Regina average roughly four hours, according to the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI). Saskatoon patients average less than two-and-a-half hour waits. The average wait time province-wide was 1.7 hours in 2010.