Hospital Pay Parking
The VDLC is joining those who are calling for the elimination of pay parking at BC hospitals. Pay parking brings relatively minimal funding into the medical system, but creates a barrier to accessing medical care and places unnecessary stress on patients and their loved ones.
At our April 2019 meeting the following recommendation was adopted:
Subject: Free Parking at Hospitals for Patients, Families, Loved Ones and Workers
BECAUSE HospitalPayParking.ca is campaigning and advocating to uphold the Canada Health Act which states, “to protect, promote and restore the physical and mental well-being of residents of Canada and to facilitate reasonable access to health services without financial or other barriers”; and
BECAUSE hospital parking fees pose a barrier to health care, the charges amount to “parking-centred health care,” and the practice of charging patients for parking, claiming that such costs contravene the Canada Health Act because they constitute indirect user fees; and
BECAUSE patients should not have to avoid seeking care or cut appointments due to high parking costs; and
BECAUSE Canada’s Healthcare is socialized medicine; everyone shares in the cost to provide the service. Our province’s Health Authorities are entrusted with multi-billion dollar operating budgets. In comparison, the ill-gotten gains from hospital pay parking contribute a pittance. Adding up to less than one-third of one percent of their total budget, these funds are obviously not a financial necessity and have no place in our publicly funded system; and
BECAUSE Pay parking is a user fee that discriminates, patient care should not dependent on pay parking, pay parking is a financial barrier, and patients, family and loved ones should NOT be subjected to unnecessary stress and/or burdens,
THE VANCOUVER AND DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL WILL endorse the HospitalPayParking.ca campaign and promote it and its objectives. The VDLC will reach out/write letters to all levels of government, Municipal, Provincial, and Federal to express our concerns and issues with hospitals and/or their privately contracted companies who charge patients, family and workers fees for parking.
Visit HospitalPayParking.ca for more information, and to send a letter to your MLA.
