December 24, 2010
Maybe it's a bizarre way of cutting down on wait times
Imagine a hospital parking system that is so infuriating that people would rather stay home and suffer than go in for treatment. It seems we have such a thing at our very own Royal Inland.
It’s only anecdotal, but I have heard from time to time of people desperately seeking help from a walk-in clinic rather than having to deal with the parkade from hell. When I recently needed minor surgery, I parked several blocks away and walked because the thought of being sliced and diced was already stressful enough.
Cam Fortems did a great job in Thursday’s paper of explaining how hospital parking works, and how it fails miserably. But the thing that really struck me was the lack of any apparent interest in making improvements at this taxpayer-funded institution. Surely, customer service should be a top priority.
I know this gets dredged up every now and then, and is routinely ignored, but we really need to start putting the screws to the provincial government to bring in locally elected hospital boards with meetings open to the public. A few citizen delegations — along with reporting in the media — might be enough to embarrass the powers-that-be into doing the right thing.