Cutting hospital parking fees looks so much simpler than it is.

Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins announced Mondaymorning that the province is ordering hospitals it funds to freeze fees they charge to park in their lots, and also to offer discounted passes for people who buy parking in bulk with multi-visit passes. Reports theToronto Sun:

Hoskins said the government wanted to lower parking fees for those who frequently visit hospitals, as promised by Premier Kathleen Wynne. “We believe that parking fees should not be a barrier to accessing health care,” Hoskins said.

And he’s right that in practice, parking fees often amount to a user fee, of the kind the government would never permit hospitals or doctors to charge directly for their services. If it’s not an ambulance-worthy crisis, a middle-of-the-night trip to the emergency room at the children’s hospital costs $13 if you drive yourself and your kid there, which any parent with a car almost certainly would rather than waiting for a bus or a taxi. Multiple trips to the “body shop” at the Childrens’ Hospital of Eastern Ontario for a broken arm? $13 each. Kid needs a few hits of IV antibiotics? That could be $39 a day if you go three times. A pittance compared with what the treatment costs the health system, but it adds up.

These are all experiences I’ve had personally. They’re all the more aggravating because the hospital makes money on your parking fee while the hospital makes you wait for service. You show up at the appointed time, they get to you whenever. At least if you’re going for some sort of regular clinic appointment, you can get discounted passes of the kind Hoskins is making mandatory.

Same thing if you’re an adult with a chronic condition, of course, or in need of surgery that requires appointments in advance and then follow-ups. Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching.

It’s difficult to blame the hospitals, though, which is what Hoskins is implicitly doing. They need the money, and they have something that’s scarce and in high demand. CHEO doesn’t arrive at the $13 maximum charge by accident: that’s what people are willing to pay. Sometimes if you show up at an unlucky time, there aren’t enough spots at that price, suggesting they might be able to get away with charging even more.

Requiring them to charge less will make parking more affordable and yet harder to get. I don’t know what people will do if they arrive at hospitals in their cars and there’s nowhere to park. The Ottawa General/CHEO campus has what amounts to overflow/cheapskate parking on Lynda Lane and other streets just south of it, but that will often not do if you’re with an sick child or frail adult.

Many hospitals are almost inaccessible by any means other than ambulances or private cars. They’re big buildings and we’ve tended to put them on big lots far from dense neighbourhoods. Sometimes, by historical accident, density has arisen around them, but most often they’re plunked in the middle of acres of parking like shopping malls. In Windsor, we’re building a new hospital literally in a farm field on the edge of town. Getting there by any means other than driving will be all but impossible. For a $2-billion public institution.

Even when they’re downtown, of course, large hospitals tend to have vast catchment areas. At the Civic, Ottawa’s most urban hospital, they’ve got this new parking garage because they just don’t have enough room for all the cars, even with staff parking in lots well down Carling Avenue. People come from all over Eastern Ontario to go to the Civic, the General and CHEO, and that would be the case no matter where those buildings were.

[np_storybar title=”Read & Debate” link=””] Find

Full Comment on Facebook

[/np_storybar]

Indeed, the more accessible the hospital by other means, the more central it’s likely to be, and therefore the more precious its land. At Montreal’s new McGill University Health Centre superhospital, which is a bit outside downtown but right on a metro line, parking is $25, or $30 inits most convenient “express” lot (which is down from the $50 they charged when the hospital opened).

Ultimately, it’s an intractable problem. Hospitals legitimately need to provide parking. If it’s free, they’ll need to provide a lot of it, at great expense to themselves. If it’s expensive, they’ll need less of it, but it’ll come at great expense to patients. Pick your poison.

Ottawa Citizen

dreevely@postmedia.com

twitter.com/davidreevely