Why is PHRC’s parking pricey?
Shawn Trueman says all he wants to do is visit his wife in the hospital – but he can’t do it, for a reason he finds terribly irritating.
“My wife needs me to be there but I can’t – because of the cost of parking,” he says.
Trueman, 53, has diabetic neuropathy – painful nerve damage that makes it hard to walk. “I’m in pain 24/7,” he said. His wife, Nola, has serious liver and kidney disease. She took ill last Monday, and was admitted to Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC).
Now it looks as though she may be there awhile, and Trueman is at wit’s end. It costs $10 a day to park at PRHC – too much for him.
Trueman is living on payments via the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), and he says he can’t afford a $10 parking fee on top of his monthly expenses.
He says that although ODSP will reimburse him for his parking fees, he’d still have to come up with the money upfront.
“I don’t think it’s a real answer to the situation,” he said.
His other options for getting to PRHC are an hour-long transit ride from his apartment on Lansdowne St. E. (no thanks, he says) or else parking on the street blocks away and trying to walk (which is tough, due to his chronic pain).
Trueman has been married 33 years, he says, and Nola needs him at her side.
“After 30-some years, I know my girl. She’s scared,” he said. “I want to be there as much as I possibly can, but it’s impossible – this parking fee is killing us.”
Meanwhile, PRHC doesn’t charge nearly as much as some hospitals in Toronto. There, it can cost up to $20 a day to park.
For $10, PRHC allows you to park all day. For $12, you can park for 24 hours – with in-and-out privileges, too.
Michelene Ough, a spokesperson for PRHC, says the hospital collects a bit more than $3 million a year from parking.
She said most of that – about $2.7 million – is spent on patient care. The rest – about $600,000 – pays for lighting, security and snowclearing in the hospital parking lot.
Ough points out that the province doesn’t cover the full expense of operating a hospital. About 15 per cent of costs are covered by the hospital itself; they make money by charging for items such as cafeteria food and parking.
MPP Jeff Leal said this parking issue has been brought to his attention lately.
For the last few years, a group of local retirees has asked him for cheap – if not free – parking at hospitals across Ontario.
Although Leal didn’t promise free parking, he said he understands why it matters: people are often highly stressed when visiting loved ones in hospital.
“The last thing you need to be worrying about is parking rates,” he said. Trueman agrees. “If someone’s in the hospital, the last thing their loved ones should have to worry about is to pay for parking,” he said.
“I really think nobody should have to pay to come to the hospital.”