The province is investing $2.9 million to boost emergency medical services response times.

Medavie Health Services West in Saskatoon is getting an injection of cash from the provincial government but it won’t mean the company has to spend extra money on ambulances or to hire new paramedics.

Medavie’s Troy Davies says Saskatoon and Regina will split the 2.13 million dollars which, in Saskatoon, is equivalent to 16 full time paramedics and two full time ambulances. He says they have a lot of staff who are part time or on call, who have been getting called in, steady, for the last year. He says their call volume has gone up significantly since 2014-15 as the city gets bigger.

$780,000 is also going to additional staffing at Royal University Hospital Emergency Department in Saskatoon. When paramedics deliver a patient to the emergency department they cannot leave the patient until a room has been assigned and care has been officially transferred.

Over the past five years, EMS in Saskatoon and Regina have experienced an increase in call volumes. In 2019-20, EMS in Saskatoon answered nearly 32 thousand calls. It was an 11 per cent increase in five years. The new funding will provide additional staffed ambulances in both major cities over the next two months.