Parking ticket - Pay up? Fair cop?

South London actually (seeing as you are stalking me)

TIM

was it a round copper/bronze coloured item with the kings head stamped on it?

about the size of a 1d coin?

tim

That should have said every 30 mminutes ...

Didn't think we were only talking about disabled parking?

Right. So you need to take someone to A&E. And the cost of parking is going to be critical?

The thing is, most of the money made from parking would be deducted from money available to be spend on treatment. And then add in the costs of policing the free parking to that deduction. And with free parking, you're far more unlikely to find a free space anyway.

A local pal has to attend an out of London specialist hospital every two months. He gets free parking there. Others, like casual visitors or patients have to pay. Most hospitals have free parking for some under certain circumstances.

If parking is free, those who might happily use PT to save money will simply drive there. Making parking more difficult for those where travelling by car is nearer essential. This is exactly what has happened at the hospital my brother uses in Scotland. He now has to park on the streets surrounding it - and pay there. A lose lose situation.

Given hospital waiting times, really a problem?

As I remember it was red platic about the size of a halfpenny. It had the Edinburgh Burgh council's arms on it.

Reception desks on wards, where are they wasting resources like that?

Because they are actually combined reception desks and nurses stations. They need somewhere for sitting to access a computer, phoning or reading through notes. It is also usually where the ward phone is, so family and friends can call and ask how a patient is getting on. It has the advantage of providing a reception facility and it tends to mean that people aren't wandering round asking any passing member of staff for information as they are going about their business.

SteveW

They might as well throw away all those auto check in machines they installed to cut queues. They could cut unemployment by replacing them with staff, ten times as many as they currently use would probably manage at the QE.

They could cover the costs by charging for car parking though. About five times what they currently charge I would imagine as there are far fewer parking staff than they have reception staff.

Yes mate of mine did that a while ago went to visit a mate in hospital no one know where he'd gone it was discovered after a while that he'd died and he'd been moved to the mortuary;!

SteveW

No it just interrupts the one doing other medical stuff.

That?s bullshit. I have done that 4 times now. One time when I thought that I might be having a heart attack and it turned out that I was indeed having a heart attack. Everyone wagged their finger at me for driving myself to the hospital and it certainly wasn?t a very smart thing to do but one of the ambos who took me to the airport for the air ambulance trip to the state capital for the stent said he would do that himself.

One other time I was getting massive stomach pain. They gave me some sort of very pasty stuff to drink and that fixed it instantly. They never did give me a very clear explanation of what the medical problem was and I have never had that again.

On a number of other occasions I have had severe gallstone pain that took all the doctors a long time to work out was due to gallstones, even tho gallstones are a common problem.

On all those occasions I drove myself to the A&E and that worked fine.

If they weren't intended to be available for visitors and the like, they'd put the desk in a side room, where they could work in peace.

SteveW

If medical staff couldn't even look after themselves in a matter as simple as this, how should one regard them?