Hospital parking: The real cost for patients (CBC Marketplace)

this week on Marketplace how far will hospitals go to make money raising rates for parking it's a tax on my cancer patients how much you think you've spent on parking spot being a thousand patients and loved ones take risks to cut costs some fight back it's uncanny goes shame on them and push for change should families take on the cost of the hospital we're in Abbotsford British Columbia using this smart car for something you might not think is smart at all we're trying to get a parking ticket at this hospital on purpose watching nearby waiting for the ticket man who's that we want to know where the money from those tickets goes we'll find out later across the country Heather Stewart takes her daughter Catherine to yet another medical appointment Catherine's a cancer patient they pull up to Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga Ontario but Heather is not parking at the hospital head back in a couple minutes guys hey she drops off Catherine and her brother Jeffrey then drives to the mall where parking is free and Heather's not the only one trying to save money patients and loved ones take a long and treacherous walk struggle along a slippery path help hurt there you can see the paths across the field of everybody hitting hard ice okay all because they can't afford to pay $16 for hospital parking time madam job so we didn't do it at the beginning but now shouldn't the cost the hospital has become a second home for Heather and her daughter Catherine Catherine has just entered isolation five years ago she was diagnosed with a rare aggressive type of cancer I got a wish trip because of I make in the Centers my wish trip was to go to Disney World come and they had a lot of fun her family tries to make the best of hard times in between a slew of medical appointments how many days did she spend at the hospital in 2011 147 days a hundred and forty seven in one year she says the care is excellent but what told is having to pay for parking every hospital visit take it's a lot of stress it's a lot of stress with our daughter diagnosed I'm not able to work how much do you think you've spent on parking over the years hmm it's going to be in the thousands a chunk of that change is spent here at Toronto Sick Kids Hospital like many hospitals sick kids says it uses the money for patient care parking six dollars every half hour stay longer than an hour and a half you've reached the daily max of twenty bucks and now the hospital scrapped the discount rate for parents too so you don't get a family discount anymore this increases 25% and that's astronomical in my opinion hospitals across the country in Red Deer Regina Winnipeg Niagara Falls and Truro Nova Scotia just some that are raising their rates many say they don't get enough funding from provincial governments so more and more have figured out their parking lots are money makers at Toronto sick kids parents are so worked up they start a petition asking for affordable rate a thousand people sign I'm truly disheartened by this callous rate increase shame on you why should hospitals treat families this way in order to make money this is simply another slap in the face to parents who have already been emotionally and financially drained heather signs to the number of times i've driven in that parking lot and our daughter's nauseous i don't have a choice i can't park three blocks away but they won't bring back the parent discount we have to pick our battles and right now whatever is best for our daughters what our battle has to be you're emotional about that yes yeah what is it that's you're thinking about our friends and some who aren't as fortunate as us who've had to say goodbye to their children and what our future holds and it's just hard it's hard to have more and more and more how does the parking add to that stress it's not financial it's it's and it's a huge factor we wonder just how people across the country are being affected by hospital parking fees marketplace Commission's a national survey of a thousand people asks if parking fees have added stress to your hospital visit 72% say yes back in Abbotsford BC a cancer specialist sees patients stressed by parking all the time now dr. Bob Winston is speaking out I think parking fees are there a penalty for having a disease it's a tax on my cancer patients he thinks hospital parking should be free people have paid the taxes so their healthcare should be covered that includes parking what are some of the things you've heard I've had patients tell me they're not they can't come back because they don't have the money they've actually said I'm going to have to skip skip it yeah in our national survey we also asked if parking fees have affected how often you visited the hospital or how long you stayed 52 percent say yes my patients benefit hugely from having family and friends come in they help patients get fed they help patients do physio walking around the halls and walking down to the lobby so in any inhibition to having support for patients is the wrong thing Darry kristen has sure been a help for her sister Evelyn for the past month she has lost so much of her memory she doesn't remember what happened this morning never mind last week or last year Evelyn's just been diagnosed with a brain tumor at Abbotsford Hospital like a lot of hospitals you have to pay at a meter before you go in so you have to estimate how long you'll be now we're probably going to be here for two hours everything do you ever worry about the meter running out visiting your sister constantly we're constantly running out of emergency hoping that you don't miss the doctor when they come by and plugging more money into the into the meter talking about a cancer diagnosis prognosis or therapy and somebody's looking at their watch in they're going I'm going to step out and pay the meter and I'm going no you can't you have to stay here if you miss it you get a ticket and that's what happened Terry gets a $48 ticket oh it was just one more thing one more thing in the day we had had terrible news about my sister that they weren't sure what was wrong but they knew it was a brain tumor of sorts and then to find that I'm going to get a parking ticket because I was trying to be there to help her through was really a little more than I was prepared to put up with under all the stress Terry misses the deadline for paying and the fine goes up to $80 we wonder how much of that money goes to patient care so back to our test at abbotsford hospital to get a ticket of our own we rigged our car with hidden cameras then by one hour of parking let it expire and wait for the ticket man is he on to us coming up the move to fight back can understand why people in this country are getting so fed up and why are you allowing a private company to make money on the backs of sick patients we're on a stakeout at abbotsford hospital in bc watching nearby 27 minutes we could get a ticket as we try to get a parking ticket on purpose see the patroller he sure is giving out lots of tickets today and now he's headed our way he checks our car and sure enough writes a ticket up for us 48 dollars more than double the price of an abbotsford city ticket so how much of that goes to the hospital the tickets from in park the largest parking management company in Canada more and more hospitals are turning to private companies like embark to run their Lots we asked in Park for an interview no one will speak on camera we track down an imp Ark insider Erica Corrie caravel used to be a senior accounting manager there why would a hospital need a company to run its parking you would get a parking management company to come in to help you drive revenue I guarantee you that any parking management come to that's running a hospital has an added revenue stream significant to dot hospital just check out this pitch to hospitals we find on in parks website maximizing parking revenues in challenging times what are some of the ways of parking company maximizes how much money it's making for its client through violations in ticketing and that ensures that your revenues ripen up because people that park there know that they may get tickets so they're going to more likely to pay it's proving time and time again with the lots that they have you put a compliance program in and our revenue absolutely Peaks last year abbotsford hospital cleared almost one and a half million dollars not far from abbotsford in the town of Delta BC I had a daughter that died of cancer breast cancer Louis Jackson remembers the added pain of parking fees as her daughter died in a Kamloops Hospital four years ago and you got someone in hospital it's maybe not going to make it and you're scrambling around for change it's wrong Jackson's a mother with a personal story but she's also the mayor of Delta and considered a hero in this fight it son Canaan Ian I don't know why we are that mean to people who are already in a bad way you know I mean they charged enough tax already for everything a couple of years ago Delta's Hospital was slated to have parking meters installed but mayor Jackson and her council stepped in and passed a law to ban them so when you come to this hospital you park and walk right in for free what did the Health Authority say to you about your move they weren't very pleased and they said everyone has to pay for parking in the whole region I said well we have a bylaw that does not allow but parking meters and we will stand by her by law and to those who say hospitals have to charge to make up for budget shortfalls I say sharpen your pencils we should be finding that money somewhere else in the system since Delta and abbotsford hospitals fall under what's called the freezer health authority we meet up with their media guy Erica Johnson hired boy Thorpe door word should patients be in a consult with a doctor thinking about oh I've got to plug the meter is that what you'd be going through their mind no and we would hope not and that's why our response to tickets is a flexible one and doctors say that's what's happening people are worried about running outside and leaving meetings with them you know these are absolutely issues that we hear about and we're committed to responding to I guess at the moment we're looking to strike a balance between our need to to charge for hospital parking to maintain the lots make sure the spots are there and also take care of those concerns when we hear but you're making a profit off of patients and their families yeah we're making money that goes back into providing health care services so how much of the money from our parking ticket goes into providing those health care services just listen to this where does the money go from the parking tickets who gets to keep that that one stays with the parking management company so in this case can park so in part gets every dime from this ticket yes none of it goes to the hospital no we think Terry Christin might want to hear what we've learned remember she paid $80 for a ticket she got while helping her sister at the hospital unlike the fees that you pay at a parking meter when you get a parking ticket in part gets to keep all of that money really I didn't know that nothing goes to the hospital it's all for them oh so they would love to ticket as many people as they can wouldn't they and we learn there may be another reason they love to ticket you turns out every time they write a ticket they make a commission why are you allowing a private company to make all of this money on the backs of sick patients one of the reasons that we've stayed away from the ticketing is one that we were certainly reserved the ultimate authority to waive tickets so there's no conflict there isn't their incentive there to ticket heavily if they're going to be making Commission every time they ticket someone yeah I'm not aware of that that circumstance at all do you think it's a good idea no I don't think so at all so if it was brought to our attention that lots were being patrolled more heavily and therefore ticketed more heavily as a result so if it was a concern that that was brought to us we can look into it absolutely coming up would you like to try to get your money back sure and we take a message from parents to Canada's biggest Children's Hospital I've got something here I just we gotta hold on to this for me Terry Kristen had to pay $80 for a ticket she got at abbotsford hospital after her meter expired while she was inside helping her sick sister would you like to try to get your money back I would like to try but my chances of doing it I'm sure her next to nothing so we show Terry's ticket to Roy Thorpe d'Or word who speaks for the hospital and now she wants her money back because she's learned that it's going to impart that none of it is going to this hospital here is this something that you would arrange to look at to get her money back we've committed to be compassionate and flexible I can look into that yeah nine days later we hear back and finally some good news for Terry she'll get back her 80 bucks back in Toronto Heather Stewart's taking Kathryn back to sick kids and without that parent discount Heather's spending another $60 here just this week we have a lot of questions for Sick Kids so we meet with executive vice president of corporate services Jim Garner hi I'm Erika Johnson welcome sick kids why did you do away with the parent discount we looked at our policy in this respect and we compared it to other healthcare institutions across Canada and we looked at all the children's hospitals in Canada did you look at the impact that's having on parents we certainly considered though across across the board all the relevant impacts and this was a matter as you may appreciate was extensively debated and discussed it across all of the various divisions and departments of the hospital involving the most senior levels of management and you decided let's get rid of the family discount and we decided to reach change our rate structure and go to a harmonized daily rate but provide the ability to buy discounted passes parents don't want these weekly or bi-weekly or monthly passes they don't need the stress of trying to figure out how often they're going to be parking at this hospital why not just give parents what they want a better daily parking right here being a member of the management team of a hospital you really have to find a balance between the family-centered care and the fiscal responsibility to the hospital we can't take on the full financial responsibilities that families experience should families take on the cost of the hospital it's inevitable that an unfortunate situation that that these kinds of experiences create emotional and social and financial hardships on families last year sick kids made 5 million off parking fees sounds like a lot but compared to all their revenues parking money's a drop in the bucket the money that you bring in from parking is less than 1% of your total revenue is it worth all the stress you're causing families we're in a very constrained government funding as you as you know I mean Ontario is going to a very fiscally tough time and that that experience is being conveyed down to all the broader public sector institutions including hospitals so in the exercise of our do we can't we can't not consider any source of revenue how about saying this is such a small portion of our total revenue and yet it's creating such hardship for so many families they are stressed out at night they can't make their other bills they've had to make choices there some of them are in tears over this but sick kids can be responsible for the full costs of a course of treatment for a child is going through a complicated disease state they don't want it for free they just want something they can afford that's not going to break the bank we have something to show garner I've got something here I just think you better hold on to this for me these are the names of a thousand people could have signed a petition asking for better parking rates at your hospital and they use words in this petition like the hospital is gouging they're being greedy they say it's shameful the parking rates that you're charging at this hospital what do you say to these hundreds and hundreds of people who signed this petition who are at desperate need for a better parking rate first we I say we understand and we appreciate the financial and emotional hardships that you go through in a course of treatment at the hospital listen to them they want a better parking rate what what I would say is we try the hospital tries to do everything it can do in a responsible and balanced way to support families the first thing they do on this petition is they ask for a meeting with you which they never got will you commit right now to sitting down with this group and talking about your parking rates I Wicked's meets with reg with groups regularly on various issues and we will we're very open to meeting with any group so that a yes issue provided it will be a constructive meeting okay we have your word on that well he agrees to meet parents but should I leave this petition with you know we have copy of a thank you so you know there are a thousand people who are unhappy with your parking rates but you're not budging meantime Heather's about to pay for parking at yet another hospital taking Catherine and her cousins to cheer up Heather's mom who's just had treatment for breast cancer emotionally hard and financially - you can't keep putting more stressors on families that are already tapped the families need help the families really need help help that's not coming until hospitals Park the idea of making money off people in pain

Channel: CBC News

Views: 849,028

Rating: 4.7969027 out of 5

Keywords: CBC News, CBCNews, CBC broadcasting media, public broadcasting news, Canadian News, Canadian Broadcasting Corportation (TV network), CBC News Network, sick kids hospital, parking tickets, parking, towing, healthcare, cancer

Id: kU3VptazV5c

Length: 21min 30sec (1290 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 23 2015