Imagine you have back pain. Your doctor suggests you need special scan. You have to travel an hour across town to get to the hospital where you have an appointment at 9 am. You take the morning off but hope you might get to work in the afternoon. It’s peak hour traffic as you arrive at the hospital. The queue to get into the car park stretches down the street. You join the line of cars and realise it’s now 8.45am. The X-ray department is a long walk from the car park. Just as you get to the entrance to the parking lot the attendant indicates that it is full and you have to try and get a spot on a side street. The chap in the car behind you is getting frustrated- are you waiting in the queue or trying to back out? It’s a one way street you can’t turn the car here. It’s now 9 am you are going to be late- not sure how late. You toy with the idea of just going home.

In November 2011, an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal called hospital parking fees a barrier to health care, saying the charges amount to “parking-centred health care,” and recommended hospitals stop charging patients for parking. The editorial stirred up a debate in the media. The Ontario Nurses’ Association, for one, agreed with the recommendation and noted that many of its members could tell stories about patients who had avoided seeking care or had cut appointments because of high parking costs. Canadian Nurse

Photo by Ruffa Jane Reyes on Unsplash