I like to think of it as a “hold my beer” moment between God and Satan.
God said something like, “Hey Lucifer, I bet you can’t take something that is already incredibly stressful and make it significantly worse.”
Satan smiled and handed God his half-finished can of Molson Export.
And thus, hospital parking was born.
That’s the origin myth I concoct as I sit in the café on the ground floor of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, which is located at the Ottawa Civic Hospital Campus, watching the lot across the street. When I arrived at 6:15 a.m., spots were still free. Now, at 8:55, the lot is packed and street parking (both paid and free) is almost nonexistent.
Drivers circle the quaint side streets like sharks searching for prey. Some attempt ill-fated parallel parking jobs. Others try to jam awkwardly into diagonal spaces. By 9 a.m., there is only a single spot left. It’s snapped up. As the morning proceeds, I time vacancies with a stopwatch. A car exits and 14 seconds later the space is filled. That’s fast. The average parking space is empty for a mere 41 seconds.
The Ottawa Civic Hospital Campus is famous for its bad parking. In June, a resident physician wrote a letter to the Ottawa Citizen complaining that the hospital was unfairly punishing patients and workers with parking tickets. Unable to find a spot one morning, and needing to attend to patients, the physician parked illegally.
“I left a note on my dashboard explaining the situation and returned within 15 minutes to try to move my car to another location,” wrote Dr. Nathaniel Murray. “I saw a parking officer giving me a ticket. Despite me showing my hospital ID and explaining the exceptional circumstances, he was unsympathetic.” Murray was not exaggerating. His letter drew letters from patients and doctors singing the same lament.
I know the Ottawa Civic Hospital well. I was born there and as a teenager was treated there. (Once, while in emergency in 1984, I was visited by a priest who gestured to my IV drip and said, “I bet you wish that thing was filled with gin.”) I’ve been there many times in 2023 taking a loved one in for treatment. Parking is, indeed, vile. It’s particularly bad because of the Ottawa Hospital’s Civic Campus Redevelopment Project. The Civic is under construction, building what will eventually be one of the largest and most modern teaching hospitals in Canada; part of that redevelopment is the creation of a four-storey, 2,500-space parkade on top of Queen Juliana Park.
I contacted the Ottawa Civic to see if they had a plan to improve parking and received a reply from their media relations department.
I was informed that visitor and patient parking rate increases there are based on provincial government directives and that both the City of Ottawa and the parking department issue City of Ottawa parking tickets.
“Our parking team is working to add more off-site parking locations for staff, which would be conveniently serviced by shuttles. This would allow for more on-site parking capacity for patients and visitors by freeing up parking stalls. These options are a starting point as we continue to look at future opportunities.”
The Civic may be the most notorious in Canada but hospital parking is a scourge all around the world. A recent study found that 32 per cent of U.K. drivers surveyed said they had been late to a hospital appointment because of not being able to find a parking spot. In 2013, the CBC news show Marketplace investigated the state of hospital parking in Canada to determine whether it was a “tax on the sick.” Of the more than 1,000 Canadians Marketplace surveyed, 52 per cent said that “parking costs affected how often they can visit a hospital, or for how long.”
Hospital parking fees are stiff. It’s easy to be stuck paying the “daily rate” after an hour or so. If you can find a spot at the Civic, it’s $14 per day. If you’re at a parking meter, it’s $24 per day. At Sunnybrook Hospital’s Bayview Campus in Toronto, daily parking is $27 per day. At Vancouver General Hospital, it’s $18.50 per day. If you’re only at the hospital a few times, it’s digestible. But what if you need to be there regularly with a family member undergoing treatment?
Hospital parking is so costly and so stressful that an organization has been created to reform it. Hospital Pay Parking wants medical facilities to “create and maintain parking exclusivity using License Plate Recognition technology.”
Hospitals have a captive audience. It seems like overkill to give someone who is sick a parking ticket. Aren’t they suffering enough? I have no problem getting a $250 parking ticket because I parked illegally on my way to collect my lottery winnings. I would not be as happy getting a ticket because I parked illegally so as not to be late for appointment to have a golf-ball-sized boil lanced.
Even if you are going there for a happy reason - the birth of a child or a long-desired nose job - you’re nervous. No one associates a trip to the hospital with a stress-free good time. On Christmas morning, Santa Claus does not travel around the world picking up all the good little boys and girls so he can take them to the hospital.
Taxis and transit are, of course, an option. But what if you are transporting someone? Mobility is a concern. Hospital visits involve drop-offs, post-operative visitations and repeat rehab appointments. A car makes these tasks easier, especially given the sorry state of public transit in Canada.
Hospital parking is an irritating, expensive frustration. The patients and their families, the doctors, nurses and other staff, all have much more important issues to worry about.
We’re all sick of it.