Hospitals worried about parking freeze impact

Torontosun.com
Jan. 18, 2016
By Antonella Artuso

The Ontario government is taking steps to make hospital parking fees more affordable for patients and their families.

Health Minister Eric Hoskins announced Monday that he is ordering an immediate freeze on all hospital parking fees and the development of multi-day passes at a reduced cost.

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,” he said.

The Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) expressed concern about the impact on hospitals whose budgets have been essentially frozen for years by the provincial government.

OHA president Anthony Dale said in a statement that the government has been encouraging hospitals for the past 10 years to generate their own revenue to fund operations.

At the same time, the government has not provided an increase to hospitals’ operating budgets in four years, he said.

“Revenue generated from parking fees is always used for patient care, towards the purchase of capital equipment and projects, infrastructure, clinical research, and day-to-day operations such as facility maintenance,” Dale said.

“As hospitals continue to absorb hundreds of millions in operating costs without an inflationary increase, it is increasingly difficult for them to invest in other important health-care priorities, such as capital improvements to their buildings, new medical and diagnostic equipment, and information and communications technology. The decision to cut revenues could not come at a worse time.”

Hoskins said the ministry opted for a “reasonable balance” in limiting fees while maintaining hospital revenues.

Hospitals will be asked to work with Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) to ensure they can accommodate the changes, he said.

HOW THE NEW PARKING FEES WORK:

- Immediate: Freeze on hospital fees for three years, followed only be inflationary increases.

- Oct. 1: Hospitals that charge more than $10 a day in parking fees must bring in passes for five, 10 and 30 days at 50% of the daily rate. About 35 hospitals charge more than $10 a day to park.

- Other Savings: As of Oct. 1, hospitals must make multi-day passes transferable between patients and caregivers, include in-and-out privileges over 24-hour period, and remain valid for up to one year from date of purchase.

- Why all of this may not save you money: Many hospitals do not own the adjacent parking lot. Government wants hospitals to use persuasion to convince private lot operators to lower costs for frequent hospital visitors.

- Too Little, Too Late: “Last year, Ontarians were forced to pay at least $172 million in hospital parking fees, nearly $500,000 each and every day. It has been over 600 days since Kathleen Wynne promised to cut hospital parking fees, and now patients and their loved ones will wait another 256 days before they see relief from these high costs”: NDP MPP France Gelinas.