A recently released report details how often Victoria and Nanaimo residents get ticketed at hospitals and nursing home parking lots.
Hospital Pay Parking (HPP), a local advocacy group, issued a press release on Tuesday, February 4th, based on FOI reports from Island Health between the dates of April 1st, 2018, and March 31st, 2019.
In that time, Robbins Parking, the company in charge of Island Health parking, issued 13,105 tickets to people visiting hospitals and nursing homes in Victoria.
According to these FOI documents, the cost of those parking tickets was a total of $327,625. Each ticket costs $25.
The company only received 28% of that money — $92,248 — due to discounted and waived tickets.
In the FOI, Island Health said they had waived 3,451 tickets.
See more: Parking ticket issued by the City of Victoria reaches the front page of Reddit
Island Health also included information for staff parking violations, which make up the vast majority of the parking tickets. According to them, 8,843 of the 13,105 tickets (or 67%) were from staff.
Robbins towed 13 staff vehicles over the course of the year, as opposed to no public vehicles.
As of the time the FOI was filed, over 4,994 parking tickets were outstanding.
Pay parking is discriminatory, advocacy group says
“Pay parking is a user fee that discriminates,” says Hospital Pay Parking on their website, where they released the results of their report.
“We think the current welcome message at BC hospitals of, ‘Hi, I’m the pay parking machine and I am your first priority at this hospital’ … should change to one that welcomes people with empathetic compassion.”
In an email to Victoria Buzz, Island Health said they are committed to supporting patients who arrive at their sites for care and reiterated that the 13 cars towed belonged to staff.
“The revenue stream from pay parking covers the cost of parking infrastructure, maintenance, lighting, painting, security, and snow removal,” Island Health said.
“For patients and visitors, Island Health provides a variety of pay options for different types of hospital visits, including short term and extended stay rates, and financial hardship subsidies.”
Full list of issued tickets:
- Nanaimo Regional Hospital — 3838 tickets
- Royal Jubilee Hospital — 3612 tickets
- Victoria General Hospital — 3590 tickets
- Saanich Peninsula Hospital — 927 tickets
- Gorge Road Hospital — 303 tickets
- Queen Alexandra Hospital — 269 tickets
- Aberdeen Hospital — 195 tickets
- Oak Bay Lodge — 137 tickets
- Priory Hospital — 119 tickets
- Glengarry Hospital — 75 tickets
- Mt. Tolmie Hospital — 40 tickets
