hospital parking fees

Graces7 wrote: »

His points have often been unclear so it is he missing the point.

Why cannot Ireland have what is done in the UK? Have a pool of drivers, people with time to spare, at no cost to patients, to collect and bring home patients to and from appointments etc in their own cars. ? Sometimes too none emergency ambulances are used as outpatient transport.

Works well

Far better than here and with patients having to miss outpatient appointments because of costs and lack of transport

If you are referring to me I am a she and I can clear up any point you would like me to .I am not missing any points at all .

Hayes Modern Sterilization wrote: »

It's others who are missing the point.

I drive cancer patients to hospital appointments a few times a year, on behalf of a local charity, but we still have to pay to park our cars while we wait to bring the patient home.

The greatest users of hospital carparks are visitors and they are being charged exorbitant rates to visit friends and family in hospital.

Absolutely Hayes Modern Sterilization . Outpatients take up a lot of spaces during the day too . In fairness many of those I would guess could use public transport .
The subsidies( or indeed free parking when needed) should be for those in need , those who are visiting patients in a long term admission , those with sick partners and sick children .Not for any willy nilly person who happens to carry a medical card as someone above suggested .By all means if the medical card holder falls into the above category yes of course

Quinton Modern Stepfather wrote: »

I find it a little grim that children with cancer and other horrific illnesses are being used as a blanket excuse for free parking/no public transport. If free parking was introduced I’m willing to bet it would be much harder for people who need a car at the hospital to find suitable parking. Absolutely agree with provisions for long term sick people to help with parking, but it’s definately not an argument for every single car that drives into a hospital carpark

In fairness I dont think they were being used as a blanket excuse for every tom dick and harry to have free parking .But the point is that some patients and thier visitors / carers should have a capped or free pass /

Just to lay out the numbers so people can understand:

I was doing my tax today actually & going through medical expenses. We spent a total of €480 on parking at Crumlin last year (not actually claimable on tax but I had all the receipts together). That's in addition to all the various accommodation costs (one parent, usually mother, can stay on the ward with the child but dad has to buy grim hospital accomm for €20 a night), the cost of feeding yourselves while you're there, the costs around babysitting or transport to relatives for care for other children, the lost income from lost work, stuff like nappies for a newly incontinent child, blah blah blah blah.

Some of that is claimable against tax, but that's not much help when your income drops due to working less while caring for your child. Our combined income dropped from around 50k to less than half of that for the year - we're both self employed & had to turn down a lot of work. All in all, we probably ended the year maybe €30k down. We got a kind grant of €1000 from the Cancer Society to help with costs, but I hear those have been stopped now. There is Ronald McDonald House which provides family accommodation, but we could never get in, it was always heavily oversubscribed.

We do have that priceless thing, a kid who survived, which is obviously better than all the money on earth. For outpatients appointments, with our child now happily in remission who just comes up for scans and things, we're perfectly happy to get the train to Dublin & a taxi to Crumlin. It's still a cost burden, maybe €80 or €100, and a day off work/school, but nothing like what we were paying for those week long stints.

I would in no way say we were the worst off on the ward either, some of the stories would break your heart. Financial pressure is a huge part of having a sick child. Some of the phone conversations I would hear in the corridor, people with terminally or seriously ill kids, pleading with employers/banks/social welfare etc, would break your heart. Probably something repeated in the adult hospitals too with one partner trying to care for another etc.

It would just be nice if these specific people, at the worst time in their lives, were not seen as parking cash cows.

Moomintroll99 wrote: »

I know that you're desperate to continue to build our car centric society that has us zooming up the obesity and carbon emission league tables, but what does a car give you that dedicated point to point transport service does not?

Cancer is a fantastic cure for obesity in children, trust me.

I think you are conflating the long term health issue of 'how all the people get to work & school every day' with the short term health issue of 'how the unfortunate few very sick people get to life saving care'. I totally agree that there should be a less car centric society, with accessible bike paths, pedestrian friendly walkways, and penalties for taking unnecessary car journeys. That would be better for everyone's health. But some of us are still going to be those unfortunate few hearing bad news about random illnesses.

As stated before, a car gives sick children and adults the ability to:

- avoid life threatening infections from other users while getting to and from treatment
- access care at inconvenient times
- preserve dignity for the sick - avoid some of the 'Mammy, why does that boy have no hair?' type comments people make.
- let people from rural and remote areas access highly centralised services
- carry all the stuff - illness means a lot of bags of clothes/medications/equipment etc
- protect other public transport users from things like getting vomited on etc. Some of the sights associated with my son's treatment have been very, very confronting even for me as his parent. I just do not think commuters on a Luas really need to see some skeletal child having a fit or being completely incontinent or screaming in pain etc before getting in to their work.

For example, imagine your (definitely not obese) child with cancer wakes up having a seizure at home at 3am, then screaming that their head hurts. You freak out and call the hospital, they say to come in ASAP to rule out meningitis caused as a result of low immune system from chemo.

Are you going to wait for the bus? Really?

If you had spent one tenth of the time reading my post that you actually spent thinking up problems, you might have noticed that I didn't actually refer to public transport.

But it is interesting to note the fanatical grip used to cling on to arrangements for storage of private property in public spaces. It's not just "won't someone please think of the children". It is now "won't someone please think of the sick, cancerous children".

A bit extreme, no?

PlaneSpeeking wrote: »

Moomintroll99 wrote: »

Cancer is a fantastic cure for obesity in children, trust me.

I think you are conflating the long term health issue of 'how all the people get to work & school every day' with the short term health issue of 'how the unfortunate few very sick people get to life saving care'. I totally agree that there should be a less car centric society, with accessible bike paths, pedestrian friendly walkways, and penalties for taking unnecessary car journeys. That would be better for everyone's health. But some of us are still going to be those unfortunate few hearing bad news about random illnesses.

As stated before, a car gives sick children and adults the ability to:

- avoid life threatening infections from other users while getting to and from treatment
- access care at inconvenient times
- preserve dignity for the sick - avoid some of the 'Mammy, why does that boy have no hair?' type comments people make.
- let people from rural and remote areas access highly centralised services
- carry all the stuff - illness means a lot of bags of clothes/medications/equipment etc
- protect other public transport users from things like getting vomited on etc. Some of the sights associated with my son's treatment have been very, very confronting even for me as his parent. I just do not think commuters on a Luas really need to see some skeletal child having a fit or being completely incontinent or screaming in pain etc before getting in to their work.

For example, imagine your (definitely not obese) child with cancer wakes up having a seizure at home at 3am, then screaming that their head hurts. You freak out and call the hospital, they say to come in ASAP to rule out meningitis caused as a result of low immune system from chemo.

Are you going to wait for the bus? Really?

Shame this can only be thanked once - the vehemently anti car militia need to be shamed into seeing reason it seems.

Bwaahaahaa.

Apology accepted in anticipation.

Ford White Sisterhood wrote: »

new hospitals should not be built anywhere near city centers but on green field sites with loads of space for parking and much easier access away from city traffic etc.

Also telling people to get public transport is idiotic

It certainly would be if you built the hospital outside the city making public transport even less of an option.

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

If you had spent one tenth of the time reading my post that you actually spent thinking up problems, you might have noticed that I didn't actually refer to public transport.

But it is interesting to note the fanatical grip used to cling on to arrangements for storage of private property in public spaces. It's not just "won't someone please think of the children". It is now "won't someone please think of the sick, cancerous children".

A bit extreme, no?

One could give you the benefit of the doubt that you hadn't read the last post from Moomintroll99 before you posted your contribution, and thus aren't a complete <snip>.

But Moomintroll99's post detailing the financial and emotional troubles encountered by a parent of a child with cancer was posted at 12.26 and your contemptuous retort was posted at 12.48, a full 22 minutes.

Here is the post for you.
And you better fooking hope you never half to walk a mile, nevermind drive a mile, in the shoes of the parents of children with cancer.

Moomintroll99 wrote: »

Just to lay out the numbers so people can understand:

I was doing my tax today actually & going through medical expenses. We spent a total of €480 on parking at Crumlin last year (not actually claimable on tax but I had all the receipts together). That's in addition to all the various accommodation costs (one parent, usually mother, can stay on the ward with the child but dad has to buy grim hospital accomm for €20 a night), the cost of feeding yourselves while you're there, the costs around babysitting or transport to relatives for care for other children, the lost income from lost work, stuff like nappies for a newly incontinent child, blah blah blah blah.

Some of that is claimable against tax, but that's not much help when your income drops due to working less while caring for your child. Our combined income dropped from around 50k to less than half of that for the year - we're both self employed & had to turn down a lot of work. All in all, we probably ended the year maybe €30k down. We got a kind grant of €1000 from the Cancer Society to help with costs, but I hear those have been stopped now. There is Ronald McDonald House which provides family accommodation, but we could never get in, it was always heavily oversubscribed.

We do have that priceless thing, a kid who survived, which is obviously better than all the money on earth. For outpatients appointments, with our child now happily in remission who just comes up for scans and things, we're perfectly happy to get the train to Dublin & a taxi to Crumlin. It's still a cost burden, maybe €80 or €100, and a day off work/school, but nothing like what we were paying for those week long stints.

I would in no way say we were the worst off on the ward either, some of the stories would break your heart. Financial pressure is a huge part of having a sick child. Some of the phone conversations I would hear in the corridor, people with terminally or seriously ill kids, pleading with employers/banks/social welfare etc, would break your heart. Probably something repeated in the adult hospitals too with one partner trying to care for another etc.

It would just be nice if these specific people, at the worst time in their lives, were not seen as parking cash cows.