How silly of me to think that the entitlement mentality of Canadians could get any worse. But along comes Dr. Rajendra Kale, editor in chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, who argues that, “Parking fees amount to a user fee in disguise.”
The Vancouver Sun editorial board disagrees with him. But surprise, surprise, Saskatoon’s Tammy Robert does not. She thinks she’s hard done by and whines on Charles Adler’s shoulder about her plight. In other words, Ms. Robert thinks it’s perfectly fine for her fellow taxpayers, including many of whom likely make a whole lot less than her family does, to be paying her bills. That’s pathetic.
Should we expect a Human Rights case to be filed in the not too distant future?!
Personal Note: Earlier this week I was staying at a hotel in San Francisco. They wanted $45/day extra for parking. I said “no way” and found free parking not too far away. If you don’t want to pay for parking then don’t park there!
Parking can be validated for impoversihed patients. However I do agree it can be onerous, especially for even middle class patients who have to be at the hospital daily. Usualy something can be worked out, but the cost is significant. Often street parking around the hospital is well tagged by the bureaucratic machine in order to make as much as they can.
Usually however they park in my trauma spot and I spend 10 minutes driving around looking for a parking spot when I am supposed to be attending a trauma.
Agreed 100%.
langmann: don’t spend ten minutes “driving around.” Spend 30 seconds and call a tow truck.
Although on a personal level I like Tammy very much, as I’ve had a few opportunities to speak with her a few years back; politically speaking, judging from her opinions I’ve heard on the JGL show, she leans heavily toward totalitarian tendencies. It’s been my observation over many years of listening to her POV that she almost always leans towards the “I know better, and people should be forced to do as I think” meme. The only time I hear her leaning towards liberty, is when it’s been her liberty imposed on. I am not surprised on bit that TR feels entitled to OPP. BTW, this is why she constantly got crushed on the JGL segment “Mano vs Tamo”.
Regarding parking at the hospital; I was not aware that one could only drive to the hospital, nor that they couldn’t park a few blocks away.
The stress of living in a large city. It’s why we moved away after a lifetime’s inhabitance.
Our town? A new hospital going in and no parking meters anywhere. I love it.
If you don’t want to pay for parking then don’t park there!
Seriously Robert? That’s the best comment you can come up with for justifying paid parking @ hospitals? There’s lots of good reasons to justify paid parking but telling a person on crutches or otherwise impeded to walk from the free lot is pretty callous.
I made a startling discovery here in Vancouver yesterday:
– I had a bunch of dimes in my coin purse.
– I started feeding them into the meter.
– I suddently realized that the time purchased by one dime was gone by the time I got the next dime in.
I’m not as quick as I used to be. Some hyperbole applies.
It’s not often that I’ll defend the local health district which is a bloated, monolithic nightmare complete with overpaid management and entitled unionized staff. However, free parking simply cannot be justified. Some revenue has to be generated to pay for the operating costs, most of which are incurred to look after the aforementioned entitled unionized staff who maintain the parking lots. I think it’s a fairly safe bet that the revenue generated far exceeds the costs however.
Some parking fees are reimbursed in certain situations … ie. cancer patients receiving treatment.
And if anyone believes that staff receive free or discounted parking, I know for a fact that they are gouged just as badly as the patients. I guess even SEIU couldn’t manage to wrangle free staff parking out of management.
Bear, you’re telling me that patients at a hospital can’t make arrangements with friends or family to pick them up right at the front door? You’re telling me that they can’t call a taxi, if only to take them a short distance away to where they were able to park an unlimited amount of time for free?
Instead your answer is for taxpayers to pick up even the parking tab at hospitals?!? How soft have you (and other Canadians) actually become?!?
If Dr. Kale is right that “parking fees amount to a user fee in disguise”, then free parking amounts to a non-user fee in disguise. As a non-user, I will have to contribute taxes to pay for a parking lot so the likes of Tammy Roberts can conveniently park their cars, most of which are nicer, newer, and more expensive than mine, conveniently close to the hospital. I would much rather be placed under an obligation to take my turns driving strangers to their hospital visits. Then they will have to sit beside me in my car and we can chat about how they are costing me part of my life to provide them with what they claim they cannot provide for themselves.
I agree that Hospital Parking Fees should be abolished; a Hospital without adequate Parking should never have been opened & should be closed promptly. (Tommy D had a BIL that owned Regina Parking Lots)
I get to sample the Arizona/Saskatchewan Hospital Practices…Parking is free in Arizona and the TELEPHONE Access is Free… The Regina General Hospital emergency phone system (third Party pay) is a “petty” disgrace…
Why screw folks in need of medical care?
If free parking becomes a “right”, why stop there? Taxpayers should also pay for a limo to pick people up for their doctors appointment if they have no car (afterall, having no car DOES interfere with your access to health care). Maybe taxpayers should have to pay your salary when you miss work for a medical appointment (afterall, working DOES interfer with your access to health care). Perhaps even paying for babysitting for parents who have medical appointments, or paying for mileage and meals for those living out of town. Oh boy, the list of potential goodies is endless!! When will these socialist nutbars get it?
I hate paying the extortionate parking fees demanded by our local hospitals. However, I would hate even more having to pay the extortionate taxes required to pay the extortionate parking fees for all the entitlement minded socialist whiners and wankers.
Don’t think of them as parking fees at the hospital. Think of them as them as the deductible for free health care (that only drivers must pay).
Guess what. It is still dirt cheap. I would rather see a $10 fee for every visit to the doctor and the hospital. That would lessen the revolving door visits from junkies, and free up expensive resources for those truly in need. The Unions will scream but it would save our health care system.
I’ve been there. As a chemotherapy patient, I had to pay for my parking (paying for four hours to get pumped full of chemicals for three). I felt a bit of resentment at the beginning, then three months into my treatment, rates increased by 50% – from a dollar an hour to a dollar and a half. The ONLY IMPROVEMENT to the parking lot was a bunch of new signs and a fancy electronic metering machine. Somebody got a nice raise for that move, I am sure.
So far as finding a free spot in the neighborhood – no chance – they filled up by seven in the morning.
Find a taxi to take me to a distant “free spot”? – Taxis cost $4.00 to open the door, if you’ve ever been counting.
The next time you’ve been dosed with chemo and to take a breath of cold air is like getting kicked in the chest, not wanting to pay $6.00 to park isn’t being socialistic – it’s coming to the realization that bureaucrats don’t discriminate between the sick and the well, just so long as they make their quarter million a year, and you resent being part of the game.
Since, in my experience, the truly indigent receive taxi vouchers for everything under the sun, I see it as a sort of means test. If you can afford the initial expense, insurance, maintenance and fuel, why not the parking? The hospitals I’ve worked in either had no parking fees for patients or a discounted parking rate for one caregiver while the patient was in hospital or attending outpatient clinics.
A senior driving 20 mi. (ea. way) visiting a mate in hospital for three weeks needs suitable parking. When the hospital is between a large body of water and a large university, it means the parking is limited and the closest and most convenient is owned by the U.
Doing a means test for parking fee assistance while visiting family at a hospital is ridiculous.
And, since you’re not aware of the visiting family member’s situation, health or otherwise, there’s a lot of self-righteous garbage being spoken here.
Instead of a happy Christmas season, to all of you I say bah, humbug. At the heart, you’re not too far removed from Scrooge.
I’ve got no problem with paying for parking, but I don’t like paying 5 to 10 times the going rate in cities.
I heard of the case where someone drove to a hospital and they kept him for 10 days. When he got out the parking bill was $1,000. That is nothing short of extortion.
In BC the parking lots are operated by private companies. They have some revenue sharing arrangement with the health authorities which I’m sure is basically the parking company gets the ticket revenue and the HA gets the meter money. Anyway the reality is this scam is going to quickly come crashing down HARD. And by scam I’m talking about “free healthcare”. In BC they are looking at euthenasia as one possible solution but I don’t think that will catch on somehow.
“I do agree it can be onerous, especially for even middle class patients who have to be at the hospital daily.”
yup, that’s for sure. At one time had to make daily visits, often multiple times per day to the NICU for almost a year. Cost adds up very fast and no prepaid parking permit spots were available at the time for non-staff. But the long distance to the parking spots was the most brutal at times. Often a 1km walk.
For the occasional visit no big deal, but daily & at one point the short visits that were required several times a day were hell.
My local hospital has paid parking at the emergency department. Most people just park in the middle of the road, and block the ambulances. I just put’er in 4×4, and make my own exit.
As for it being a “user fee in disguise”, I see no disguise, at all. It’s a good way to subsidize parking fees for employees, so maybe this Dr. should keep his opinions to himself, or he might end up paying his own way.
I have an idea!
We could build a hospital, say, out on the edge of the city where space is not an issue and the only reason to charge for parking would be to further gouge the taxpayers who built said hospital and are now having to use or visit it.
If we were to do this in, say, Regina, we could probably find a spot somewhere along the middle of the south side. This would give great access to out of town traffic and emergency vehicles.
Ah, never mind, someone would likely just turn it into a school or something…
Meanwhile 52 division police in the heart of the Toronto hospital district who pull down 100 “G”s a year and retire at 50 with 90% of what they earned their last year, have taken to parking their cars all over the front yard because they can’t be expected to pay for parking like the rest of us shlubs.
Nice thing about small town living. No parking fees for the hospital in Three Hills.
The problem is big cities. Period. Land in big cities is too expensive, and too highly taxed, to enable any non-profit to offer free parking. Sure shopping malls offer free parking, but show me a non-profit shopping mall.
If hospital parking were really as big a problem as some here say it is, why haven’t some entrepeneurs offered a “Park and Doc” service analogous to the “Park and Fly” offered at airports? You could park your car at a large, secure lot, pay a realistic fee for all day, or X number of days, and get a shuttle ride right to the hospital door. If it’s not being done, must mean there is not enough demand.
@DrD
> Since, in my experience, the truly indigent receive taxi vouchers for everything under the sun, I see it as a sort of means test.
Bravo. I agree completely.
Let’s see what the medium-term future promises:
1. Anemic economic growth.
2. A flood of retirees.
3. Fewer productive workers stepping in to replace the retirees, and to pay taxes.
4. Accelerating rise in medical costs.
5. High debt loads in many governments.
6. Many other revenue streams tapped out, including lotteries.
7. Natural resource revenues are helpful but volatile.
What does this mean?
A. User fees.
B. Higher taxes.
C. Reduced medical coverage.
It may be that parking fees are the most humane, most compassionate way to raise money of any of the options out there, given that taxes will be raised to the point of exhaustion anyways.
My question would be, What the heck were you doing in SF?
What about the Human Right to own a firearm to protect yourself from Liberalized drug addicted welfare felons?
There’s no charge for paring at my local hospital in Cape Breton. It seems stupid to let people go to the Dr for sniffles for free and yet charge a man throigh the nose for parking when he visits his dying wife in the hospital. I’d rather pay for the latter than the former.
I am 100% aginst free parking at hospitals part of the reason is the parking lot would be abused by people not going to the hospital.Here is a ezample a hospital in the west end of ottawa is right next to a major housing devlopement now if you have free parking you going to have lots of people use the lot as there own personal parking space.
“Nice thing about small town living. No parking fees for the hospital in Three Hills.”
I live in a fairly large Alberta town and our hospital is where you wait for an ambulance to take you to a city hospital. No surgery, no specialists, no nothing. You can’t avoid city hospitals.
I spent an extended stay at RUH with a young wife and two toddlers. If you think I was having them walk multiple blocks from wherever free parking was during the winter months, by themselves, in the dark, you are delusional. We paid the $20 a day charge (5 weeks worth) It was just another bill that piled up while our income was diminished by the fact I was in the hospital instead of working. We were better off than most because of my employer, friends and family who all stepped up and gave us a hand when we needed it. I will always be grateful for that. Charging for parking for people who weren’t as lucky as me is just another stress in what is quite often a very sad and unfortunate situation.
I don’t think blanket free parking at hospitals is the answer, but there is some validity in the argument. How about having a little compassion for the people in those situations.
In Ontario gouging on parking fees is part of the capital plan for constructing new hospitals. Likewise paid parking has recently been introduced at rural hospitals that were built decades ago.
It is absolutely a user fee.
The good doctor says this is a user fee in disguise. Absolutely correct. If McGuinty want’s user fees, he should charge $20 as a hospital admission fee for all patients and visitors rather sneak it in through bloated parking fees. But McGuinty is McGuinty: sunlight is poison and darkness substenance. Robert has filled the role of useful idiot.
Slap Shot
It should not be free but it should be cheaper say $5 for a full day.
i can see where she is coming from Where as a person/senior or whomever on a fixed income And is only making occasional visits to a doctor or blood work etc. it can add up. When my mother(passed 2yrs ago) was in with her cancer & was going to be on an extended, I was there 2 & 3 times a day to that i went to the admin office and purchased a weekly pass so i could come & go when ever & Not pay the $5.00 fee everytime. That saved me money.
Our hospital is $5.00 per day with the first 20min free, Emerg is 5.50. But like i said if you leave the parking lot then you pay again when you return. There is a highschool next door & they started cracking down with people using there’s for hospital visits, & a Wallmart 4 blocks away. So alot drop off Then go park there & walk back to hosp.
One more point i can see the surcharge where iam to help in covering cost to repairs & snowremoval, But i do think their should be some exeptions for those hard pressed.
**The biggest Rip-Off in Our Hospital IS the TV Rental, That is Out & Out Robbery.
Should it be free no, should the fee be reasonable yes.
I live in a suburb north of Toronto. Our local hospital is about a mile away. They have the usual exorbitant parking fees, which I don’t have a problem with except…
In a small suburb, where there’s virtually unrestricted parking from 6 AM to 2 AM on every street save Yonge and a few major E-W roads, there’s no parking on the streets surrounding the hospital – even on the side streets a few hundred metres away. Directly across the street from the hospital is a high school, with a parking lot that could hold 100 cars easy. I understand the high school needs the spots during the school day, but try parking there on a Sunday (as I have); you get a sticker on your car windshield telling you not to park there again, that your license number has been noted, and next time you will be towed.
As I said, what the hospitals charge on their own property is their business, but for them, in collusion with the town, I suppose, to close off all the street parking in the area so that people – especially elderly visitors – have no choice but to pay their ridiculous fees? Feh.
bryanr
The thing with saying there should be exeptions for those who are hard pressed is where will it end are people going to say they should not have to pay anything that is the way i think were going.
Bear, you’re telling me that patients at a hospital can’t make arrangements with friends or family to pick them up right at the front door? You’re telling me that they can’t call a taxi, if only to take them a short distance away to where they were able to park an unlimited amount of time for free?
You’re kidding right? What are you? Some sort of urbanite? No idea what it’s like to drive 120 miles ONE way to a hospital is like? And then have some moron tell you – get a friend to give you a ride? Holy cow, I knew you city people were out of touch, but you’re in another time zone!
Oh and for the record, I pay to park. I’m not a cheap ass like some people posting on here.
White Rock’s hospital posts Resident’s Only Parking signs within blocks of our hospital and jacks up the pay parking at the hospital, accompanied by aggressive monitoring and ticketing. In an emergency, or waiting all day for a loved one to get treated, this just becomes another unpleasant experience! Same for other B.C. hospitals that I’ve dad the displeasure of waiting in for unknown hours to chauffeur a groggy passenger to her home.
everything in this country has become a ‘human right’ as long as you can make ‘the government’ pay for it..after all, it’s not like anyone demanding these ‘rights’ pays the taxes it takes to provide them…
you have the right to be provided the OPPORTUNITY to better yourself…if you don’t take that opportunity and prefer to sit in a circle and bang a drum instead, then don’t demand that I give you what I used my opportunities to obtain without my express permission
Foothills & Rockyview hospitals in Calgary built huge multi level parking structures. How else to pay for ’em? Although $1000/10 days is redonkulous.
On another tack, i rode the bus/bicycle to work until my employer realised they couldn’t send me to meetings on a bicycle, Ha-ha. Then i got “free parking”.
When I worked as an electrician I worked at Sunnybrook Hospital. They have a huge chunk of land, and being in Toronto aside, they are in the middle of nowhere. I can’t remember the numbers, but we basically refused to work there unless they could find us decent parking for a reasonable price. They would try and ticket us when we parked our trucks to unload materials. In Oshawa, I live pretty close to the hospital, and the parking is so outragous depending on why I am there, (luckily it has only been a few times) I will either walk or take a cab.
I too, would happily pay a user fee at the hospital than pay typically 2 to 4 times the market rate for parking.
This is a tough one. Part of me laughs at the point people call it a human right to park their car for free (a human right in Canada should be a human right in Ethiopia too right?)
Unfortunately, the gouging that goes on to pay for parking, hits those that are usually less able to pay.
This is where insurance would hopefully kick in. And if it didn’t, a new smart capitalist insurance company would provide it to steal the customers from the other insurance companies and make it a major piece of a marketing campaign.
At the end of the day, taxes cannot afford to pay for everything between conception and the grave site. We need to pick and choose carefully what they should pay for.
In North Dakota, parking meters on public streets are illegal.
Parking meters in private parking lots, including those owned by state agencies (such as the University of ND), are permitted.
I have to question Tammy’s comment that she is out $500.00 for 32 days of parking at the RUH. Check the parking fees and do the math for 32 days. Also unused portions of weekly and monthly passes are refundable.
http://www.saskatoonhealthregion.ca/your_health/ch_ruh_parking.htm
used to know people who parker their STOLEN cars at the local horsepital
FREE parking does tend to git abused
All I can say is that I sympathize with those who have to go on a regular and daily bases for treatment.
A taxi is more expensive then parking fees, and having someone else drive you might not be a practical solution for them.
I’m fully aware of the those opportunists that would take advantage of free parking, but if we can’t take advantage of the technologies that exist today to exempt those who must make frequent and regular visits, then abolish the fees.
She is correct when she points out the irony. I know from our experience with our first child that we felt like we were paying to be prisoners of the system; and the salt on the wound was that there was no recourse. There was absolutely no way to voice our disgust without us being in the “wrong” in the end.
Too many people think they should have all the priviledges of a 5 star luxury Sandals resort when going to the hospital. Including the oversized and free Costco style parking stall.
“Parking fees amount to a user fee in disguise.”
Absolutely they do.
Don’t forget, hospitals are a -monopoly- in this country. You have no choice over where you’re going to go, or where you are going to park.
Particularly if you’re too old and frigged-up to walk half a mile from the cheap/free parking.
Particularly if you have to wait SIX HOURS to be seen in ER, which is considered not bad these days.
Particularly if your wife/husband/parent/sibling is in hospital for weeks and weeks, as people commonly are.
Particularly if the only place you can get in to see a specialist is at the hospital.
Particularly when parking right at the hospital is double to triple what it is anywhere else in town.
McMaster University Hospital, $15 a crack. Got a sick kid, it adds up quick.
I’m a big believer in user fees, when the doctor (or more to the point, the ER) charges a fee for the visit. Not so much when the hospital screws twenty bucks out of every visitor who comes to see Grandma.
Never found a hospital with free parking, never. I work in a hospital and have to walk 5 blocks from parking is a residential neighbourhood so I can afford to go to work. Employees don’t get free parking period. Areas close to the hospital are either metered or time limited (2 hr). Sad fact is that land is a resource and has a value that must be paid. Hospitals that are in urban or downtown settings are even worse. Even if I could afford to park in the hospital lot I probably wouldn’t because there isn’t enough space for patients and visitors as it is. Most often it is a case of musical cars. I’ve walked through the lot leaving in the morning and found a string of cars following me, hoping to get my space(and assuming I was heading to my car). Public transport or car pooling doesn’t work worth beans for those who don’t work 9-5 M-F. Shift workers who keep the hospital running 24-7, 365 don’t have too much choice of getting to work.
Having said that, most hospitals that I am familiar with have weekly or monthly parking rates and some (cancer care ) actually have vouchers or complimentary parking for patients receiving treatment. five hundred bucks for a month of parking seems a bit high, even in Saskabush.