What’s so difficult about lowering rates to park?
Health minister’s concern over people poaching spots not borne out in Toronto
A year after pledging to slash hospital parking rates to a maximum of $10 a day, the Coalition Avenir Québec government has been sending out signals that fulfilling its election promise will be a lot tougher than expected.
Health Minister Danielle McCann has expressed concern that some people who aren’t patients or family members might take advantage of the reduced rates and park at a hospital rather than use private or city parking.
“We have to do some preparatory work on this to make sure that the people who use these parking lots are really those who are visiting the hospital,” McCann told reporters recently.
However, if Ontario’s experience with discounted hospital parking is anything to go by, lowering rates is far from the logistical headache McCann suggests. It took Ontario less than 10 months to make the changes.
“This is not a difficult issue. Come on,” said patient-rights advocate Paul Brunet. “I think Ms. McCann is more competent than that and is being poorly advised.”
Responding to a public outcry that daily hospital parking rates as high as $25 constituted a barrier to health care, the former Ontario government cut in half the maximum rates in 2016. The government estimated 900,000 patients and visitors — including 135,000 seniors — would benefit from the reduced fees annually.
Under the Ontario system, hospitals charging more than $10 daily must provide discount passes to patients of five days, 10 days and 30 days. The passes are transferable among patients, caregivers and their vehicles.
Gillian Howard, vice-president of public affairs at University Health Network in Toronto, acknowledged UHN did worry initially that some non-hospital users might abuse the system. In reality, this never happened.
“We were concerned about this, but did a number of things,” Howard said. “If a patient wanted to access the rate, they (or a family member) had to purchase the discounted passes in hospital and we had the assurance that they were benefiting a patient and their family.”
In addition, “we only sell one parking discount pass to a patient and it is up to the family to determine how to use the pass. Generally, they are purchased by people who will be coming to the hospital a lot.”
Dr. Pierre Gfeller, head of the McGill University Health Centre, was among the first hospital administrators in Quebec to raise concerns non-hospital users might poach parking spots at the Montreal General and the Glen site in Notre-Dame-de- Grâce.
But Gfeller’s biggest objection is Quebec might not compensate the MUHC. The MUHC already loses about $9 million a year from its parking operations, largely because the superhospital’s underground lot is chronically underused. The MUHC also borrowed $266 million to build the lot, suggesting it overpaid for construction and overestimated potential usage.
In Ontario, the government did not compensate hospitals following the lower rates. But it didn’t have to because hospitals didn’t lose money.
In UHN’s case, it actually lowered rates in the evenings and weekends to attract more business — a counterintuitive move that could benefit the MUHC. The MUHC’s maximum daily rate is $24, much higher than the rates of neighbouring private lots in N.D.G. and downtown.
“The increased revenue on evenings and weekends, and the fact that sometimes people buy more parking than they need in anticipation of using it over a period of time, means that we are close to break-even on the revenues,” explained Howard of UHN.
Ultimately, UHN concluded the discounted rates made sense.
“It has not been as difficult as anticipated,” she said. “Patients and families who are going to be receiving care for more than three days appreciate it, and because we sell only to people who we know are receiving care, we haven’t seen as much abuse of the price as we thought.”
David Jensen, an Ontario ministry of health spokesperson, said the government is not aware of any problems with non-hospital users cheating the system.
“Hospitals were required to work directly with their patient and family advisory councils ... to implement the (lower rates), ensuring that (they were) well-promoted and easy to understand,” Jensen said.