Free hospital parking averts 'horror stories' and financial hardship: residents and advocates
Credit to Author: Matt Robinson| Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2019 00:41:36 +0000
Axing paid hospital parking, as B.C. municipalities Delta and Campbell River have done through zoning decisions, makes a small difference to the coffers of health authorities and helps patients and their loved ones avoid parking mishap ‘horror stories,’ say advocates and residents.
Jon Buss, the head of advocacy group hospitalpayparking.ca, said the revenue collected from pay parking each year represents only around a quarter of one per cent of the annual operating budgets of B.C.’s health authorities. Put differently, Buss’s group calculated that 2018’s parking revenue paid for roughly one day of the authorities’ operating expenses.
“It really begs the question, is it necessary to put everybody through this added stress and anxiety and of course profit taking from (private parking corporations) every day of the year, around the clock, just to cover one day’s operating expenses?” Buss said.
“Are there better ways and more appropriate ways to find that revenue?”
That was the type of question being asked several years ago by residents in Campbell River, when Island Health was working on a new hospital on land it owned there.
Lois Jarvis was among those who battled hard for free parking at Campbell River Hospital.
Lois and Ed Jarvis, members of local group Citizens for Quality Health Care, were among those who battled hard for free parking at the hospital. In winning that fight, Campbell River became one of the few cities in the province where residents suffering from ailments and their supporters don’t need to bother themselves with feeding meters.
In a 2015 letter to Mayor Andy Adams and local councillors, the Jarvises had made a compelling argument that parking fees are often “taken from the most vulnerably sick people in our society who have the least money,” and they pushed for council to take action.
In the end, that is just what happened, Adams said in an interview Monday. The city looked at the lot the hospital was on and amended its zoning bylaw to prohibit the use of pay parking as “an ancillary secondary use,” he said.
Other jurisdictions have since approached the city to ask how they did it, Adams said. But he said every place is different, and what Campbell River was able to do might not work for a hospital like St. Paul’s in downtown Vancouver for example.
Lois told Postmedia Monday it has been “really nice” to have free parking. In contrast, when she had to go to Nanaimo for an emergency pacemaker, her husband missed a video on the procedure because he was out plugging the meter, she said.
“We have heard many horror stories of people having a financial hardship in paying hospital parking fees,” Lois said.
“We have also heard of people having to leave a very sick loved one to fill the parking meter and then to find their loved one had passed away while the meter was being tended to.”
Delta Hospital has free parking.
Sean McGill, the city manager of Delta, said his city was able to use bylaw zoning amendments to ensure all public facilities like hospitals and park and rides are free of parking charges. But that move was done before any facility had put in pay parking, he said.
McGill said he has heard anecdotally that residents appreciate the free parking and say it lessens the amount of stress in their lives.
Jon Buss, the head of advocacy group hospitalpayparking.ca.
Buss is pushing for hospitals to offer parking that’s safe, secure “and discriminating.” By that he means hospital parking spots should be limited to use by registered patients, their supporters, and staff.
“Who else has reason to be at a hospital? It’s not a shopping mall.”
For those people alone, “a very small sliver of the population,” parking should be free, Buss said.
The paid parking model, Buss feared, discourages friends and family from visiting patients freely. That’s a problem because supporters can help improve health outcomes, he said.
The Fraser, Coastal, Interior, Island and Northern health authorities raked in nearly $36.4 million from patients, family members and others who paid to park at hospitals in B.C. last year. That represented a nearly 5.7 per cent increase in revenue over the year prior, according to Buss’s group. Each of the authorities saw their parking revenue increase faster than the rate of inflation.
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