Hospital Parking!

Photo courtesy of the Calgary Sun

The cost of parking at Alberta's hospitals and health care centres is appalling.  When one visits a family member or friend in a hospital in this province, they are subjected to artificially high parking fees!

There is no option but to pay up.  Visitors are a captive clientèle!  They need to visit their sick or injured friends or family members. Thee is nowhere else to park around many hospitals.  Many facilities do not have decent public transit access (which is moot for us out-of-towners, anyway).  You want to visit a hospital; you pay!

I have learned that in many cases the revenue generated by parking fees accounts for less than 1% of the total revenue for that hospital!  That appears to be a lot of hate and discontent generated over such a paltry contribution to the overall budget. 

I have also learned that some health facilities hire private companies to operate their parking facilities.  These companies are allowed to attach huge fines to those who park longer than they should.  In some cases that penalty fee goes directly into the coffers of the parking company - the hospital doesn't see a dime of that money.

I believe there should be a small fee for parking at a city hospital or medical clinic, but I think those  fees are getting completely out of hand!  Maybe our Minister of Health (Fred Horne) needs to check out this situation.