scrubbedexpat091

We had 3 medical appointments this week in Vancouver, and in total spent like 60 dollars in parking charges not cheap to park even at hospitals these days.

I personally think hospitals and medical facilities should not be allowed to charge for parking, why create financial hardships and hurdles for people going to see doctors and other medical appointments at public hospitals?

mikelincs

If you don't like it, move back to the UK.. OHhh Hang on they charge for parking there..

SchnookoLoly

I dare you to start a thread about something positive in your life.

scrubbedexpat091

Never been to the UK, so no need to move back

I don't have an issue with paid parking in general, but public hospitals should not be doing it, a lot of people can't afford the parking rates, and have to leave their home area for medical treatment because its not offered locally. It' not a small sum of money when your paying it on a regular basis to see a doctor.

Not like there is an alternative transportation wise, no choice but to drive.

When something good happens I might... Lots of setbacks lately with no real solution I can think of or have found yet.

I came close to something positive happening, but the government put a kink in that for now..

sharkus

NHS and parking charges annoy me. My mother worked at a local hospital and had to pay to park, there was no staff car park so that wasn't an option. I felt this was rather poor to say the least, the people have to be there every single day. Oh, one could suggest using other methods of transit, but in this case it wasn't an option.
I seem to recall that in their infinite wisdom the NHS is no longer going to charge staff to park. Bravo!

Apart from the obvious revenue stream for the hospital, I suspect the other reason for paid parking in hospitals is that people would, depending on the location of the hospital, just use it as a regular car park when they go shopping, thus defeating the purpose of why the car park is there in the first place.

I'm trying to recall how much parking was at Sick Kids. I don't think it was that much, but it's been quite few years since I had to park there, so no doubt prices have gone up. Actually that's a good example for why there is paid parking. hospital is in a pretty good downtown location - for shopping for example - so I could see some people abusing it if it were free.

BristolUK

This has got me thinking now. We have a shoppers drug mart not far from here and their car park - a big one - is always busy Monday to Friday. More than numbers indicated by shoppers.

It made me think people just parked there for their working day, although I was always a little doubtful of that as it tended to be empty on Friday afternoons as if people knocked off early and anyway there aren't many workplaces in the area without their own parking.

Now I'm thinking that visitors and staff are maybe using it and walking the 5 minutes down to the hospital. The clinics are hugely busy on weekdays.

On weekends, the hospital car park (usually "full" during the week) has plenty of spaces while the free metered parking is packed.

I suppose it's obvious now I think about it.

Apparently the meters operate to 6.00 pm but those near hospitals charge until 10.00 pm. Why not weekends too? I mean if you justify extending through the evening, why not weekends as well?

mikelincs

Where I worked there was a specific car park for staff, barrier entry, and we had to pay £4 a month to sue it, however the car park would take aroung 75% of the staff cars, so get to work late, or be on a later shift, then you had to pay the full Patients and Visitors charge. Car park charges for staff were introduced because the Income tax people said that if the hospital gave free car parking to staff, then we would be taxed as if we were getting an extra £30 a month as a 'perk'.

dbd33

I don't know if there's a car park specifically at Sick Kids but I used to park in the one for Mount Sinai (that's just across the road for people in the tundra). The fee there was outrageous for the first half hour but fell to merely expensive over eight hours. The charging mechanism was that lost tickets were charged for twenty-four hours.

I thought the hospital policy was nasty to people who came to visit patients in that it was robbing them with shocking short term parking charges so I felt no guilt at routinely parking a car there for weeks on end and paying the 24 hour rate upon exit.

Aviator

Maybe you could start a protest!

sharkus

Yes, Sick Kids does have it's own car park.

There are a couple of car parks for Mount Sinai, not sure if they are owned / maintained by the hospital though. I *think* the one that sits between their two buildings might be (think it's just ground level parking) and wouldn't be surprised if this is the rip off one. The other one or two places on the same street weren't too bad when I used them.

Juggernaut1064

If they had free parking the lot would be full all the time with people parking free to go shopping.
Unfortunately its a necessary evil and the only way being free would work is if all parking where free .

Oakvillian

I don't mean to pick on you, Juggernaut, as others on this thread have said more or less the same thing, but this is nonsense.

Suppose the hospitals did what various supermarkets have been doing for years. You park, you take your ticket with you into the hospital, and you get it validated (or exchanged for a token, or whatever) at a reception or customer services desk on your way out. That then entitles you to exit the car park without paying; meanwhile those who don't have a legitimate reason to be in the hospital can't get their ticket validated and have to pay significant fees to raise the exit barrier. It's not beyond the wit of man, neither does it require large capital investment or much in the way of staff resources. I suppose there would be a few people (dbd?) brazen enough to abuse the system, but it would undoubtedly cut down on people parking to go to the shops.

I've always thought it particularly unkind that in effect the sicker you are the more you get dinged for parking fees. I once drove a neighbour down to our local hospital so that she could retrieve her car from the parking lot before fees became exorbitant: her husband had driven himself down as he wasn't feeling too well, and was admitted through Emerg without a chance to extract the vehicle, so he had to call home and get somebody to rescue it. I suppose if he'd been so unwell as to have called an ambulance he wouldn't have had to pay parking, but that seems rather to encourage people to abuse the EMS system...

scrubbedexpat091

Possibly, but they don't need to charge insane prices to patients. If a movie theater or grocery store can validate parking for their customers, hospitals could for patients as well.

Charge visitors all they want, but charging patients who have no choice but to go to the facility and have no other transportation options, is just mean.

The government doesn't want to provide medical care locally to people and force them to go into Vancouver, so there is already substantial costs to the patients.


I just think charging patients to park to receive medical care is just poor taste.

BristolUK

But may have been on the hook for ambulance fees instead.

$130 here.

scrubbedexpat091

I think it's $80 here for BC residents covered by MSP. They used to, maybe still do charge non-residents a higher rate. Still a bargain compared to what an ambulance ride in the US can cost.