Letter: Multiple hospital visits mean an increase in charges
I read with horror at the way new car parking charges are being imposed at The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.
I wondered how multiple visits to the hospital would be charged and my worst fears have been exceeded.
To anyone taking a relative for admission or treatment and subsequent visits it is obvious that more than one visit in a day is the norm. In fact who is going to leave their car there all day except staff?
The previous charge of £2 per day allowed such visits to take place simply with one ticket. The advertised new charge of £3.50 per day does not seem to take account of the obvious multiple visits and the system seems to charge for each visit.
£3.50 in total would be bad enough but from experience, dropping someone off for day surgery for example may include one visit of say an hour to get them settled, then up to two hours or more waiting for discharge – which happened on the last occasion I took my wife – resulting in a minimum £6 charge. This is daylight robbery and whoever devised and implemented the charges should hang their head in shame.
The car park is at a hospital not an airport or shopping centre, people are going there because they have to not because they want to. There should be a facility for those who visit more than once a day to buy a day pass at the daily charge rate though even that is a complete rip-off.
On top of all this the system has been made so complicated that visitors, many elderly and distressed (or both) cannot understand it. The very fact you have to select part of a car number when paying is so ridiculous you couldn't make it up and many cars purchased locally start with the same letters, it's not surprising people are confused.
Either the camera can read number plates, that is the whole registration number, or it can't. If the camera is unable to do so which would appear to be the case, it would make enforcement of non-payment totally unenforceable, so perhaps it would be worth everyone not paying to see what happens. In my view the whole thing should be scrapped until this is sorted out.
Ian Hinsley, Ellesmere
