LOWER MAINLAND (NEWS1130) – It’s a small amount of money in health authority budgets, but it’s a big deal for some people who don’t like having to pay; the New Democrats want to revisit the policy on parking at Lower Mainland hospitals.
Adrian Dix is not guaranteeing a change if elected, but the NDP leader wants a review.
Roy Thorpe-Dorward at Fraser Health says the amount collected is only a very small portion of the health authority’s budget, but it’s still millions of dollars each year for health care. “Currently, we rely on that money to cover the cost of providing parking and also for some general health care revenues.”
“The other thing I would note is that paid parking at hospital sites also helps us to encourage stall rotation,” he adds.
Thorpe-Dorward points out there are measures in place to help people for whom the cost creates hardship.
“Hospitals take a very reasonable approach to parking services. There are hardship and compassionate waivers that are in place. If someone is paying for parking and it is causing a true economic hardship, they should approach the program that they are receiving services from.”
Fraser Health and Vancouver Coastal Health receive a total of $19 million from parking fees.
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What a colossal waste of time and money this “review” would be. There are far more important things to poke a stick at that are more important to the people of this province. Paying for parking at the lower mainland hospitals is not an important province-wide issue.
Adrian Dix and the NDP would run this province back into the ground, something that the liberals are good at is financial stewardship. At least with another liberal government its the evil you know; don’t forget the things that Adrian Dix did when the NDP was last at the helm.
don’t worry dixx will fix all with higher taxes, get ready …libs are the lesser evil, you ndp lovers will be crying about the ndp in 3 years…mark my word, the whole world is going through hard times, look at europe for example,we actually have it pretty good, wait till the spend and tax dixx gets in, more people and companies moving to Alberta….
Lets assess our options shall we…
1) Pay for parking
2) Cut services (layoffs…)
3) Increase taxes
Pick one.
4) Cut government waste and increase accountability.
5) Cut contracting out which costs tax payers more money.
6) Cut numbers in management and executive levels and salaries.
Funny MSP has gone up by 24 per cent in the last three years but the health care service has gone down I wonder where the BC Liberals have put the money maybe huge raise to CEOs salary’s along with their bonuses??? Or some corporate tax brackets??? I remember watching Kevin falcon saying he would raise MSP to deal with the deficit yep raising MSP but not putting it towards healthcare typical Liberal
Typical NDP Political Grandstanding and I for one am sick and tired. It is great that the NDP wants to review the policy centering around parking at hospitals, but we all know that the NDP is only saying this because of the election in May. There is zero chance that if an NDP Goverment is elected that they will remove the parking cost, because even the NDP aren’t that stupid, they to know the revenue it brings into the goverment and the above posts are correct, health care already eats up over 50% of the provincial budget, they need ever cent. Adrian Dix is a fraud and hopefully the people of this province can see right through his empty promises and political grandstanding.l
Hardship and compassionate waivers?
I work in Fraser Health in several different sites and no where have programs been informed these so called waivers exist. Just another example of rhetoric by management politicians. There are even cases where staff are required to use their vehicles for work purposes and have to pay for parking going from site to site, a work related expense which Fraser Health refuses to reimburse them for.
It is a cash grab and when people are charged unfairly and need to dispute it, Health Authorities which their hands clean and tell people to take it up with IMPark who “has responsibility for parking.”
Nothing’s free – nor should it be. Health care needs every penny it can get. As it is the system is not sustainable. Once again Adrian Dix makes noise without really saying anything.
Its not sustainable because its been cut to pieces. The Federal Liberals cut tax rates and in turn cut transfer payments to the provinces in the 1990′s which in turn cut medical services. This led to the now famous ‘wait times’. Corporate tax rates used to be 60% in the 50′s are now down to 15%. Highest income earners during the booming 50′s and 60′s which were at 90% tax rate are now down to 29%. For the rest of us nothing has changed much in terms of tax rates yet all our services have been cut. Its funny how much better our system was back then with higher taxes and public spending during the 50′s and 60′s. Back then we built things (bridges, hospitals, etc), paid for all our services and paid off our bills.