Heh — Over the past few years I have been railing against the Scottish Government and its ban on parking charges in local hospitals. Yes there is a Scottish, Welsh, as well and English government in the UK. The Welsh and English tend to let the hospitals make their own decisions.
It seems that local hospitals in Scotland are finding that they don’t have enough parking spaces and patients are now missing appointments because they can’t find places to park. Didn’t have those problems in the old days when charges kept folks from the local high street from poaching on hospital spaces. Read all about it here.
Now hospitals are asking for the right to charge and the local government is holding strong. The money quote:
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The abolition of car parking charges did not end the duty of NHS Boards to manage their car parking appropriately and to balance the parking needs of patients, visitors and staff.
Right — You can manage your parking, but for crying out tears, part of that management can’t be charging. So what are they to do. Hire patrols to ensure that people who park in the garages actually go into the hospital. Set up complex validation program to ensure that patients and visitors park for free and others get caught at the gate? Of course all these schemes, as they call them in the UK, cost money, money that the stressed National Health System doesn’t have.
If you are paying for a person’s parking, why not also pay for his taxi, bus, trolly or bicycle. Those folks seems to be able to pay for their transportation, its just the drivers that need to be subsidized.
Rule Britannia.
JVH
