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Pay parking adds insult to injury

More compassion should be shown to hospital patients.
74746surreyw-letters
A letter writer says pay parking at hospitals is akin to robbery.

I have one question for all the candidates who are running for Surrey council and the mayor’s position: Where do they stand on very expensive parking in and around Surrey hospitals?

When someone gets sick in the family, it is not a pleasant situation to begin with, but it is like adding insult to injury when one has to pay a very high parking rate in and around the Surrey hospitals.

All possible free parking on the streets around the hospitals has been eliminated, including at Surrey Memorial Hospital and the Jim Pattison Outpatient Care and Surgery Centre.

Patients and their families have no option but to get ripped off at the pay parking lots which are getting pricier and pricier every coming year.

At Delta Hospital, for example, not only is the parking free on the streets around the hospital, but the hospital parking lot is free as well.

This is a calculated and deliberate attempt both by the Fraser Health Authority and the City of Surrey to pick the pockets of patients and their families at the worst time – when someone is sick and has no option but to surrender to this robbery in the name of pay parking.

Such schemes are made in back rooms by bureaucrats who are not directly accountable to the public and are cushioned behind the multiple

layers of bureaucracy to please their political masters who appointed them in the first place.

The public is already taxed to death by all levels of government.

There is a provincial tax, federal tax, property tax, sales tax and tax on tax – you name it.

There should be some compassion for patients; they do not get sick by choice and when they get sick they have no choice but to go to the hospital.

They should not be forced to pay a further tax in the name of pay parking.

 

Kalwant  Singh Sahota

Delta