EuroPark profiting off hospitals?

TheTruth89

I just had to go visit a relative in the hospital and had to pay for parking...now what ever about paying it to the hospital... But euro park own the car parks and are literally making a profit off peoples misfortune and into the bargain just making people's lives more difficult in a difficult time.

Why is this even allowed ? It's an absolute disgrace.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058241850/europark-profiting-off-hospitals

They don’t own the car parks. They manage the car parks under contract to the hospital, and make substantial payments to the hospital.

Who do you think should pay for your car parking facility?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058241850/europark-profiting-off-hospitals

Why do you think the hospital should provide free storage for your private property?

Timfy

I suspect the answer is fourfold

1) Land around hospitals would be prime real estate and not at all cheap to own and maintain.

2) It could be argued that it could be an income stream for hospitals, but in reality it would likely be a liability. Hospital boards would also be sorely tempted to sell on car parking land for short term profit.

2) If hospital car parks were cheap or free, you would never get parked in there for an actual appointment as they would be full of commuters and shoppers parked for the day

3) They are a business, not a charity, and as the old saying goes, if you don't want it, don't buy it!

Personally I believe that there should be a means of endorsing your ticket if you are actually attending the hospital to get a partial (full?) refund

I have fortunately only had to park at two Irish hospitals. UHG Galway who lift you by the ankles and rattle out every cent they can and the Mayo General where parking is plentiful and very cheap so it varies greatly from hospital to hospital.

If you think it's expensive here, try parking at a UK hospital!!!

I paid 2.50 an hour yesterday in tallaght. Was out in 30 minutes.

It cost me more to travel to tallaght and have a meal on the way home than my parking

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118930805#Comment_118930805

You mustn't have eaten much...

Dempo1

Some, not all Hospitals have a mechanism in place to discount cost for Relatives that need to make regular visits to a loved in admitted, the same applies for people receiving Dialysis, cancer treatments.

It is fair to say some hospital parking charges are high but just as an example of the opposite for context.

A midlands Hospital I'm know well charges around €2 per hour, I ended up being admitted there having drove myself to A&E, last November for 7 days. I was going to have my car picked up, worried at the cost of parking but told, don't worry, maximum charge is €10, Meters don't go beyond that, in essence €10 for 7 days parking which I feel was more than fair, actually generous.

TheTruth89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118930665#Comment_118930665

I'd expect taxes that people are paying to allow free parking in hospitals to people who need it. I certainly don't think a company should be profiting off the back of our hospitals.

100% sick people or those visiting them should not have to pay a cent parking in our hospitals it's a joke.

magicbastarder

what system is used in hospitals these days? pay and display, or take a ticket and pay on departure?

it was the former in james connolly when i was parked there ten years ago, which is odious.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118931480#Comment_118931480

Why should taxes be used to subsidise the transport choices of better off people? Should taxes be subsidising those who travel to hospital by bus or train or taxi? Why should the taxes of those who take public or transport be used to provide storage space for your private property?

What is it about parking that makes it expected to be free? You don't get free fuel or free insurance or free servicing or free lease payments to drive to hospital - why would you expect free storage facilities?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118930728#Comment_118930728

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118930805#Comment_118930805

Who do yiz expect to pay for or subside your parking at Irish hospitals?

martingriff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118930869#Comment_118930869

Did you read the post correctly. From my reading (please correct if I am wrong) they paid 2.40 parking and spent more while getting there and back again

gipi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118931493#Comment_118931493

Still pay and display in Connolly hospital, and cash only too if I recall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118931544#Comment_118931544

I never said I did. Please show me where I said that?

TheTruth89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118931544#Comment_118931544

Why shouldn't taxes be used to benefit everyone in our society? That's the whole point of taxes is it not ?

Why shouldnt we have a better system than "europark" how about the government run it and put the proceeds into maintaining and upgrading the hospitals rather than profit margins for a 3rd party company.

Either the taxes we pay go towards that and other essential services or if we have to pay atleast have that go to the hospital and maintenance completely.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118931782#Comment_118931782

Everyone doesn't have a car. Everyone can't afford a car. Free parking doesn't benefit everyone. Free parking benefits car owners. Why should taxes subsidise the transport choices of better off people?

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118931682#Comment_118931682

"It cost me more to travel to tallaght and have a meal on the way home than my parking"

i read that the same way as the poster you quoted did. the cost of the meal was included, based on the phrasing.

TheTruth89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118932066#Comment_118932066

Everyone not having a car is no reason for having parking lots earning a profit for 3rd parties at our hospitals. Not everyone has children either but taxes still go towards children's allowance.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118931733#Comment_118931733

As I mentioned, that's odious. As you often don't know how long you're going to be there, you've a choice of overestimating your visit and overpaying, or underestimating and having to repeatedly go out and top up (while you could be waiting in A&E).

martingriff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118932066#Comment_118932066

Not everybody can cycle or use public transport should our taxes be used for those.

Sorry so someone who has a car is better off not always no. Also if someone is going to hospital be what it be for, using public transport should or would do.

Of all the things that you want taxes to be not wasted on, parking spaces for private property has to be right up there.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118932671#Comment_118932671

Regardless of the why's the vast majority of people in a hospital get there using a car. Kinda nuts then not to service that requirement in a competent manner.

macvin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118931480#Comment_118931480

Can you please show the profiteering?

And why do people always hark on about "our taxes" pay?

The taxes are paying for excellent care your relative is getting. €21BILLION of tax actually. That's a MASSIVE 80% of PAYE taxes collected that goes on healthcare.

Social welfare is another €23 BILLION.

And you have an issue about paying a few euro for parking to visit your relative that is getting great care thanks to my and many others tax contribution.

I really don't want to be paying for your parking.

Flinty997

You've already paid for the parking when they built the hospital. Someone parking there isn't costing anything extra.

The only cost is paying someone or something to collect money.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118932864#Comment_118932864

They do service it by providing parking spaces

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933128#Comment_118933128

Considering you often can't get a park, and the parking payment systems are a shambles. It's not competent, it's a farce.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933044#Comment_118933044

Providing parking costs money. It costs money to mark out spaces. It costs money to manage the idiots who don’t park on parking spaces. It costs money to supervise it with security and cctv . Providing space for parking is an opportunity cost, as otherwise the space could be used for something productive.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118932864#Comment_118932864

How did you work that out? Maybe if we subsidised public transport users instead of subsidising motorists, we’d have more people travelling by public transport.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118932641#Comment_118932641

But you’d agree that generally, motorists are better off than non motorists, right?

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933363#Comment_118933363

Because I've looked at the studies and followed the studies that been done to death on these forums and in the media.

Because I've used these car parks extensively for years.

TheTruth89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933347#Comment_118933347

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118932983#Comment_118932983

Its good so we have good charitable non profit organization s such as europark to step into the breach and shoulder such a burden.

Are you for real? As for the people talking about the billions of taxes on other stuff you wouldn't miss the few euros it would take to provide free parking for sick people at a hospital.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933347#Comment_118933347

They paid for it when it was built. It has minimal on going costs.

Including the cost of people who don't park in parking spaces is just gibberish.

It would appear that the only argument for free parking at a hospital is based on emotive arguments. Logically speaking, it makes no sense.

babyducklings1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118930728#Comment_118930728

How much is it over there?

23 skidoo

I have to use a Dublin hospital once a month for a chronic ongoing medical condition. The hospital uses pay and display. I also have to regularly use the Mater which is often filled with match goers.

The cost of using these car parks are the same regardless of whether the user is attending the hospital or pissing off to town for whatever other reason, and the car parks are similarly priced to other urban car parks.

So what’s the net result? No disincentive for park and ride people abusing the car park and massive inconvenience and financial burden for genuine in and out patients.

Why can’t hospital car parks have a barrier system and validate (free of charge for patients ) and subsidies for visitors and heavily charge the clowns going to matches or shopping.

Why won’t this happen? Because the cash cow will dry up. Sick people are seen as a cash cow in Ireland .

Flinty997

The Mater Car Park is full on match days with supporters. It's not even dedicated the hospital. Temple Street doesn't even have parking. How many years was parking in the mater on rubble on a derelict site. Blanch sold off their land for housing. New children's hospital had parking issues before it's even built.

Parking is a shambles. We don't have 24/7 public transport. The excuses for not sorting it all out is pitiful.

They could have a parking tag system and discounts and validated parking for patients and visitors. Especially for those with long term illnesses and conditions.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118932671#Comment_118932671

This discussion is about Hospitals which aren't Private property(ignoring the issues in Ireland with ownership of the freehold ground beneath them by Religious Orders) but the point of delivery for a vital service which is care of those who fall ill.

As part of planning applications for any public building the provision of parking within the curtilage would be a key element and failure to allow for adequate parking to enable the building to serve its intended purpose would result in the planning application being rejected.

Parking is an integral part of any offering be it a church, a school or a hospital. Ensuring that it isn't over or under-provisioned is part of the planning process. Ensuring that the public building as a resource achieves its maximum facility to the benefit of society involves amongst other things ensuring that the on-site parking provided is neither lying idle nor abused and this can be achieved through the setting of a reasonable per-hour parking fee. Parking on site should never be treated as a profit centre as provision of health services to the Public in Ireland is not considered a "for-profit" service of the State.

23 skidoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933516#Comment_118933516

Right. So cancer and dialysis patients should have to pay. Good to know.

What’s your opinion on preventing access to the car park for people who are park riding or going to gaa games?

magicbastarder

I have to use a Dublin hospital once a month for a chronic ongoing medical condition. The hospital uses pay and display.

yeah, pay and display for hospital goers is lazy and obnoxious. if it was ticket and pay on exit they could at least look into setting up tiered charging.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933516#Comment_118933516

And yet you ran out of facts, logical arguments and went straight to blithering on about emotions. Ironic.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30780510.html

imagine all the costs of being sick with a long term condition and then someone adds even more costs to it. Nice.

Flinty997

This argument has been going on for years. Especially with the NCH. Usually by people who never use the car parks it visit a hospital on a regular basis..

Car parks are big revenue. They aren't going to want to change that anytime soon.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933493#Comment_118933493

They paid for it when it was built. It has minimal on going costs.

land given over to parking is land foregone for other uses, and that is the cost. hospitals cost money - an eyewaterring amount of money - to run, and available land, and setting aside available land to car storage, is a significant cost.

a parked car is anathema in a very real sense to efficient use of the land available to a hospital; in that a parked car is quite literally a car not being used. it takes up not that far from 0.5-1% of an acre to not be used (based on a flat car park). a car park of one acre, which is (at best) full with 150-200 cars, is an acre given to storage of items not in use. so why shouldn't hospitals charge for the land? if you can think of another example where your presence in a hospital takes up 15sqm of the grounds, but you're not charged for that, it'd be interesting to hear.

Flinty997

Its hypocritical to argue the cost (or the use) of the land, when they've refused for the new NCH free land, with almost unlimited expansion, in favour of first at the mater, then at James, sites with extremely landlocked and expensive to build one. If you want to maximise space and reduce cost you'd build a box. What did they build...an oval. Blanch even sold off their land.

In the case of the mater, they are using the parking for people going to football matches. Why does a hospital provide parking for football matches. Why is the parking in all hospitals not restricted to people using the hospital. You can't argue its critical infrastructure if you don't care what its used for, are wasteful with it, and let anyone park in it.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933605#Comment_118933605

Imagine all the costs of being sick with a long term condition, and not being able to afford a car - and looking out the window at the Cancer Society running a big campaign that will only benefit better off cancer patients.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933571#Comment_118933571

Parking is no more a 'profit centre' than the cafeteria or the gift shop. It is fairly standard practice to outsource these services to specialist businesses, and get a contribution to hospital costs. Are people going to throw a temper tantrum and stamp their feet over having to pay for a cup of tea? Sure it's only hot water, and they already have the boiler, so it's no cost to them.

What specifically is it about parking that attracts this inflated sense of entitlement from better off people? Clearly we've spent far too many years designing society around the needs of middle-class motorists, so any little chip away at their entitlements is seen as a massive attack. Let's keep on chipping.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933571#Comment_118933571

The private property in question are the cars.

Why anyone should expect the govt to provide for the free storage of them at public facilities is beyond me.

If you can afford to drive, you can afford the parking fee. Don't want to pay it, use an alternate mode of transport, simples

Timfy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933526#Comment_118933526

I was undergoing extensive treatment at Royal Berkshire hospital in Reading, twice a week, four hours at a time. Parking on site would have been £5.00 p/h. It was cheaper for me to park in the town centre and get a taxi out! No idea what it costs now, this was 15 years ago.

Flinty997

you should pay extra if you get a taxi as you must be loaded. In fairness if you got a taxi you could have cycled. Of course there shouldnt be storage for bicycles at the hospital either. You should really walk there.

You can always do a drive by and push whomever is sick or immobile out of the car as you drive past. Which has the added benefit you don't have to babysit with them for 24 hours in ER (or where ever they are going) and look after them. They can use hospital resources for that. They wouldn't need storage for People then either like waiting rooms and family rooms. Or cafes, or shops.

You'd be able to outsource this parking for other things like matches or local business or housing then.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933886#Comment_118933886

You just can't seem to grasp that nothing exists in isolation and that infrastructure must be reasonably accessible to all to serve its purpose. You can't grasp this because you don't want to grasp it.

...and then the cognitive dissonance there when you bemoan the lack of more bicycle parking yet expecting "somebody" to magically provide it. You are a hypocrite. https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/103738989#Comment_103738989

All at the same time as militating for more and more and more dedicated bike lanes to the exclusion of every other road user irrespective of whether they be on foot or donkey or quadricycle or car or van or ambulance or fire-engine or lorry or any combination of above. Your Apartheid against ALL OTHER ROAD USERS is clear to see.

Go off and come to terms with the fact that your strongly held beliefs(because beliefs are all that they are) are not internally consistent and do not tally with the views of broader society or its institutions. The rest of us here are sick of you constantly polluting EVERY thread with your anti-car vitriol. It is tiresome and I actually am begining to suspect that at a basic level you are mentally unwell because it has obviously taken over your every waking thought.

TheTruth89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933730#Comment_118933730

I wonder are you living in the real world at all, your arguements and the comparisons you try to bend into some warped form of proof are just nonsense. To be honest I think the way you are arguing is completely disingenuous, your trying to pit it as favoritism towards cancer patients with cars rather than look at it as a small thing that can take away one other headache for people already burdened with enough hardship.

From a compassionate perspective alone most decent people would want that provided free of charge in this country, I'm glad people like you are outliers, I find your stance and reasoning disgusting at best and speaks volumes about you as a person and your morals.

As for your previous dig about "your taxes paying for my relatives care..." Just shows how delusional and detached you are, don't worry the pittence you provide personally isn't the corner stone holding up the health sector.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118934286#Comment_118934286

Parking IS reasonably accessible to all, with a small fee to cover the costs of storing your private property on public space. Perfectly reasonable.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118934585#Comment_118934585

"your trying to pit it as favoritism towards cancer patients with cars rather than look at it as a small thing that can take away one other headache for people already burdened with enough hardship."

That's absolutely what it is - special privileges for cancer patients with cars, at the expense of others. If it was combined with some kind of transport programme for ALL cancer patients, that would be something. But it's time we moved on from parking privileges for better off people at public expense

23 skidoo

What ever about charging or not charging patients.

Why don’t hospitals take steps to deter or prevent non-patients or non-visitors from parking?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118934286#Comment_118934286

I had you on my ignore list for so long that I forgot why, your stalky rant just reminded me, later lol