Hospital TV company defends its charges
The company responsible for charging people to watch television in a hospital has defended its fees after a petition calling on them to scrap or reduce them was launched.
Hospedia’s system charges patients up to £10 a day for the use of television, internet, radio and phones.
But some people who have relatives at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness are calling for the charges to be scrapped.
Shelley Gill started the petition following her grandmother Jan Ryan’s visit to hospital which cost the family more than £40 over a few days. It now has 3,329 supporters.
She believes that 2019, when Hospedia’s contract runs out, is too long for people to wait with no guarantee that any- thing will change. Hospedia claims that it costs an average of £1.5 million to install the systems within a hospital and originally provided the equipment, installation, maintenance and staffing for the media services with the understanding that there would be a charge to patients for their use.