Hospital parking charges will hit those less well off

Published: 26 November, 2010

• WHITTINGTON Hospital Trust’s parking plans are arbitrary, presumptuous, disproportionate and unreasonable. 

It is not the business of an NHS trust, a quango and not an elected, representative, democratic body, to undertake this kind of economic and social ordering of the life choices of all citizens by financial penalty. It has nothing to do with the efficient management of a hospital car park. 

The reported basis of charging will have nothing to do with fairness or reasonableness. For reasons of medical and capital necessity, many poorer, older and sometimes disabled people often drive old, larger vehicles which consume above-average fuel. Some of them, no doubt, are without the financial means to replace such vehicles, particularly now in these hard times. 

To be consistent, will the trust introduce financial penalties for other carbon-related consumer preferences of which they do not approve? Will there be a charge for those entering hospital premises wearing leather shoes, belts and gloves manufactured from cattle whose excrement causes one of the world’s most potent causes of global warming, methane gas? 

Will those known to use aircraft for holidays also be charged for hospital treatment on the grounds that they do not holiday at home and thus contribute to the presence of carbon?  

And are we to assume that trust members do none of these things? That might be a line of inquiry pregnant with all sorts possibilities.  

At the back of all this one suspects the sickening likelihood that, if not pure zealotry, it is merely a reprehensible construction for getting more money from car parking, at the expense of the humanitarian expectation that all individuals are given reasonable, fair and equal visiting rights.

ROBERT SUTHERLAND SMITH 
N2