"Atrocious Parking"

Let me start by stating the staff have been faultless and this review in no way a reflects the excellent care we have experienced over the last 5 visits to this hospital. The staff have been brilliant.

But, the parking is atrocious. This hospital has a long history of parking complaints, dating back to 2009 (possibly longer). Despite building an additional staff car park to supposedly address complaints, the parking at this hospital is still terrible.

Every time we’ve visited we have had to drive around, one time up to 50 minutes, just trying to find a single space. Some people give up and dump their car in areas not designated for parking, only to immediately have a parking officer give them a ticket. It’s disgusting. These people don’t want to park there, they have no choice. People typically visit hospitals in an emergency or for an appointment, they don’t have 50 minutes to drive around in circles. The fact you think it’s acceptable to financially penalise people who are desperate, due to your negligence, is shameful. Instead of hiring someone to dish out parking fines, invest the money into your facilities.

To top it off, their parking machines are temperamental and we’ve ended up being charged for a full day when visiting only for an hour because the machine had connectivity issues. So, not only are the parking facilities atrocious, they have the audacity to charge you immoral amounts to use them.

One time I got desperate and tried parking at the nearby supermarket only to find it was limited to 2 hours (we had several appointments spread over 4-5 hours). This wasn’t helped that there was no availability on the supermarket’s parking app to pay for extended parking.

My wife is due to give birth a month from now and I am honestly petrified at the prospect of having to drive her to the hospital and having literally no where to park. My only choice will be to drop her off and go and park somewhere else, leaving her in a vulnerable state, by herself, until I find somewhere to park.

This hospital is in desperate need for a much larger multi-story car park. You’ve been criticised about it since 2009. Do something about it.