Australia, our hospital parking fees are a joke

There’s something wrong when you can get a heart transplant for free at a public hospital in Australia but it costs your family up to $64 in parking fees to visit you.

There’s something wrong when you can get a heart transplant for free at a public hospital in Australia but it costs your family up to $64 in parking fees to visit you.

Hospital parking charges are undermining Australia’s free public hospital system.

Some families are spending thousands of dollars a year on these fees, others report parking fees at hospital can cost them more than their weekly rent.

It’s taken a 13-year-old boy, Gidon Goodman, to harness public anger on this issue through his Change.org petition. The depth of public discontent can be scored in the over 45,000 signatures he already has on his petition.

Gidon Goodman is running a petition to lower the costs of parking at hospitals. (Pic: Supplied)

More importantly, the stories some families are telling about the stress these parking fees are causing on this petition are harrowing.

Some report they have been unable to visit sick children because of the fees. Others have had to leave their sick child’s bedside while they raced to move their car to avoid a parking fine. Some have been unable to afford accompanying dying relatives to medical appointments because they could not afford the parking fees.

Others have had to choose between having dinner or paying for parking.

It is true there are discounts and concessions available, but they vary by hospital and they aren’t always publicised to families who may be eligible.

The parking fees to access a public hospital and the concession rates available should not depend on which hospital you go to.

We have a national, universal free public hospital system and the cost of accessing it should be the same no matter where you live.

We have a national safety net for medicines and medical fees that limits patients out of pocket costs — we should have a national system that caps hospital parking charges in the same way.