(Updatednews.ca) -- Winnipeg paramedics are waiting longer than ever in emergency rooms to offload patients, and that is costing health officials more money in penalties, CBC News has learned.

Last year, the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service began charging the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA) a penalty fee of $113 for every hour paramedics have to wait with their patients in emergency rooms beyond an allotted time.

That allotted time started out as 90 minutes when the penalty came into effect in April 2011, then it dropped to 60 minutes later that year.

According to city figures obtained by CBC News, paramedics waited a total of 539.46 hours in April 2011, costing the WRHA $60,958.98 in penalties.

But by May of this year, the total wait time tripled to a record 1,687.58 hours, resulting in $192,384.12 in penalties.

“We’ve had cases where paramedics have waited their entire shift at the hospital,” said Chris Broughton, a local paramedic.

Broughton said paramedics have spent too much time having to wait in emergency rooms instead of caring for people in the community, and the penalties were supposed to change that.