How does one attack this subject. Hospital patients that are forced to park on the street and pay for parking. This article from the UK points out that a cancer sufferer paid upward of $1000 in parking charges over 5 years. Now that may not sound like much, about $16 a month, but it does add up if you are ill.
Here in the US, most hospitals provide parking for their patients and many validate the parking to handle the costs. In many ancient cities in the UK, however, there simply isn’t any parking to validate and patients must park on the street and literally feed the meters. What to do?
Of course the hospital could cut a deal with the city and issue permits for patients so they didn’t have to feed the meters. They could set up a shuttle program from a local parking area, or simply rebate to the drivers a small amount to cover the parking costs.
Of course, the patients could simply pay the cost of parking, because in the UK, the entire cost of medical care is borne by the government. In this woman’s case it amounted to less than $7a week, for transportation and parking. I know in some cases that can be a lot, but I guess when you come from a world of copay and maximums, its hard to understand the problem.
JVH
