Can’t excuse high parking fees

Re Parking fee freeze will hurt, hospitals say, Letter Jan. 22 Anthony Dale’s comment on already exorbitant hospital parking fees sounds gratuitous, contributes to continued creation of hidden charges and shows he may have lost touch with the general public’s ability to absorb insidious costs related to health care. The injustice has been aptly recognized by the government, so he should probably get off the treadmill.

I’ll provide a personal anecdote. While my mother was at Princess Margaret undergoing cancer treatment, I spent over $2,000 on parking for just a six-month period. There were really no other options to get there and back. This gouging is wrong — period.

Without getting too personal, from the president and CEO of the Ontario Hospital Association, commanding a published sunshine salary of more than $300,000, one should expect more resourceful ways to secure funds rather than continued, flight to the familiar, gouging of patients directly or indirectly. Anthony Maraschiello, Mississauga

I had occasion last summer to spend a few days visiting a relative at one of the largest hospitals in Rochester, N.Y. The cost to park in their large multi-storey garage was $5 for a 24-hour period — with in and out privileges.

I had arrived late in the afternoon on one of the days, and upon exiting that evening, to my surprise, I was asked if I wanted my parking stub validated so that I could use it (at no additional charge) the next morning.

A far cry from the exorbitant hourly and daily rates we pay at Toronto hospitals — and with no in and out privileges. Robert Herscovitch, Toronto