WHAT'S THE STORY WITH HOSPITAL PARKING CHARGES?

IRISH PATIENTS AND their visitors could have been forgiven for casting an envious look across the Irish Sea earlier this year, when the Welsh Assembly voted to make car-parking free at most NHS hospitals.

The Welsh minister for health, Edwina Hart, was behind the move, the first of its kind in the UK, which saw all parking charges scrapped or reduced. Those NHS hospitals without contracts with private companies stopped charging patients, visitors and staff from April 1st, while those with private car-parking contracts have pledged to reduce charges incrementally until contracts expire.

"Car-parking charges fall heavily on people frequently attending hospitals, whether they are patients, staff or visitors. They are at best an inconvenience and at worst an unfair expense. Over time, all NHS patients, visitors and those who care for them will not have the expense or inconvenience of charges," Hart said.

The savings have already been significant. Cath Lindley, general manager for Macmillan Cancer Support in Wales, illustrated just how significant when she pointed out that cancer patients make an average of 60 trips to hospital from diagnosis to treatment to follow-up, "and are hit particularly hard, both financially and emotionally, by travelling costs and unfair parking charges".

Following in the footsteps of his Welsh counterpart, Northern Ireland's minister for health, Michael McGimpsey, recently announced the introduction of free car-parking across hospitals in the North for very ill patients and their families.

"It is essential that very ill patients who attend hospital on a regular basis do not have the additional stress of worrying about paying for car-parking," McGimpsey said earlier this summer. "It is also important that the next of kin of critically ill or high-dependency patients, who may be spending long periods in hospital, should not have to pay for parking."

Stephen McMahon of the Irish Patients' Association has been "delighted" by the moves. He says it is important to have "benchmarks in neighbouring jurisdictions that we can look towards. If the NHS in Wales can provide free parking for patients and their visitors, why can't we?" he asks. "It is so unfair that families are being expected to pay thousands of euro to visit seriously ill people." He says one individual contacted him after being charged for parking at a Dublin hospital on Christmas Day. Charges are little more than a "stealth tax", McMahon argues.

"It can be extremely expensive for families who are visiting patients who are in hospital for weeks and months. Parking can amount to more than €1,000 in some cases. And a lot of these car parks are being run by private operators, who are making a profit out of patients and their families."

Dermott Jewell of the Consumers' Association of Ireland agrees. He describes the current approach as "completely wrong" and says the charges "place an unimaginable burden on the families of very ill people". He believes the focus should be on what is the least the hospitals can charge to run the facilities.

SOME HOSPITALS SAYthat by charging fees their car parks are reserved for visitors and patients, as the fees serve as a disincentive to people looking for a free space while going about their business outside the hospital.

But McMahon says, "That may have been the case years ago but surely technology has moved on now and it is possible to detect people who are not attending the hospital and abusing the system. In such cases there could be very high fines imposed."

"I have no doubt that, if they were free, some hospital car parks would be abused by some people, but there has to be a means of validation which would provide genuine visitors with significantly discounted parking fees," adds Jewell. "I don't think anyone would expect all parking to be free, but we would like to see fair and reasonable charges imposed."

McMahon accepts that some hospitals are under budgetary pressure and in certain circumstances are making up funding shortfalls by using money generated by parking fees. "This is a serious distraction from their core purpose, which is running hospitals. If a hospital's requirement is €105 million then that is what they should be getting from the State, they shouldn't be given €100m and told to make up the shortfall some other way."

The inconsistency in the fee structure across the State's hospitals is senseless, according to McMahon. "There should be a unified policy. We are by no means saying that all parking should be given away for nothing. If there is a cost associated with running a car park then that cost can by all means be recovered, but no hospital car park should be run for profit."

Another problem many have with hospital parking is the policy of charging at the full rate for the 61st minute - so that, if 60 minutes cost €3, then 61 minutes cost €6. Critics ask why hospitals can't charge people by the minute. A spokeswoman for the National Consumer Agency tells Pricewatch it plans to look into the manner in which parking fees are levied in all car parks.

She says a balance has to be struck between the needs of patients and the requirement to ensure people do not use hospital car parks as park-and-ride facilities. She suggests issuing the close relatives of patients with passes offering them discounts as one easy-to-implement solution.

Also controversial are public-private partnerships, such as those operated by Tallaght and Beaumont hospitals. The parking facilities at Beaumont have generated €10.5 million since the late 1990s and the hospital has made €2.2 million after staff costs of €3.1 million and payments of €5.3 million have been put into a sinking fund to allow it buy the car park from the private owner in 2013.

A hospital spokesman says Beaumont had no choice but to develop this arrangement under guidelines issued by the Department of Health.

When contacted by The Irish Times, a spokesman for the Health Service Executive said that the operation of hospital car parks was entirely a matter for the individual hospitals.

Price check How hospitals compare

• Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown has two public car parks and parking is free.

• Parking in Roscommon General Hospital is free, while in St Luke's in Kilkenny and in the Waterford Regional Hospital the fee is €3 regardless of the duration of the stay.

• In University College Hospital in Galway, an hour's parking is €1.30 up to a maximum of €8 per day.

• In Cork, the hourly charge in the University College Hospital is €2.20 while the daily charge is €11.

• In Beaumont Hospital in Dublin motorists pay €2.10 an hour up to a maximum of €8 a day.

• In St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin, the clock starts ticking after the first 20 minutes and it costs €2.30 to park for an hour. It costs €8.60 for three to four hours and €13.20 for a seven to 24-hour stay.

• St James's Hospital charges €12 for a day pass but once a motorist leaves, even briefly, the ticket is invalidated and when they return a new parking ticket is required.

• In the Beacon Clinic in Sandyford the hourly rate is €2.20 rising to €20 per day.

• In the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital it costs €2.50 for the first four hours, after which it rises to €5 an hour up to a maximum charge of €26 for 24 hours.