Political opinion: Tony Walls Workers Party representative for Belfast Lower Falls Area has called the situation in hospital emergency departments not only horrific but entirely avoidable
Mr Walls said the fact that one woman had to wait over 336 hours (the equivalent to two weeks) should serve as a wake-up call to those who manage the health service including the minister and the department.
He said: "It is now time to stop squandering resources financial and human on plans to reconfigure services and yet another round of restructuring.
"The Workers Party made a detailed response to the better hospitals better outcomes consultation documents. The party agreed that we had a crisis in our healthcare system for over a decade, we pointed out that the rush to privatisation and fragmentation was planned and delivered by vested interests inside and outside the service.
"Those involved had been undermining the concept and the core values of the NHS for their own political and personal agendas.
"The service cannot continue to operate without a credible and comprehensive workforce planning strategy. The staff shortages and bed shortages are growing day by day.
"To reconfigure services without addressing these fundamental issues, is the equivalent to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."
Mr Walls added it was now time for an open and transparent debate on delivering a service built on the founding principles of the National Health Service.
"Our political leaders and those charged with scrutinising decision making must now realise that the private sector cannot solve a crisis they have helped create," he said.
"It is time to refocus on rebuilding a service that puts patients and service users first and can start to tackle health inequalities."