‘Sickness tax’ is slammed

Linda Grime

Cancer patient’s appeal for free parking

A ROYTON grandmother who is battling breast cancer has made an impassioned plea for costly hospital parking charges to be dropped for long-term patients.

Linda Grime, a 61-year-old mother-of-two who is due to undergo a mastectomy this week, has been having treatment at least twice a week for two months.

But the “appalling” cost of hospital parking has forced her husband, Stuart, to sit in their car on a supermarket car park and wait up to three hours for her to return.

Mrs Grime, of Pennine View, is now leading the fight alongside the cancer care charity, Macmillan, for free parking for people undergoing long-term treatment and for regular visitors.

Macmillan director Maureen Rutter said it was a “sickness tax” and it was morally wrong that vulnerable patients who go to hospital for life-saving treatment are burdened with an unavoidable cost at a time when they should be focussing on their health and not worrying about money.

Mrs Grime is a patient at Wythenshawe Hospital, but the campaign targets hospitals across the country.

She said the £2 charge for parking after the first 10 minutes had put a difficult burden on the couple, who are both pensioners, which is why Mr Grime was forced to look for an alternative.

Mrs Grime, who has two grandchildren, explained: “It means he can’t wait with me at the clinic. And when he came to pick me up after an operation we tried to pay but we couldn’t get the ticket to work at the pay station because it was free for up to 10 minutes.

“We went to the barrier but by that time it was 12 minutes and we couldn’t get out and couldn’t back up.”

Mrs Grime added: “I was tired, grumpy and sore as I had surgery the day before, and I certainly didn’t need the stress after weeks of worrying with breast cancer.”

She said she was at a loss to understand why hospital car-park charges were “so exorbitant”, adding: “For people having regular treatment for any condition, or regular visitors, there should be a pass to get in an out.”

Macmillan Cancer Support says 59 per cent of cancer patients do not get free or discounted hospital parking despite Government guidance which strongly recommends it for patients with a long-term illness, and where they do, it is not publicised well enough.

Only Blue Badge holders are entitled to free parking at Wythenshawe Hospital, but it has a scheme for people on low incomes to reclaim costs.

At the Royal Oldham Hospital, car-park charges are £1.70 for up to four hours, £3.50 up to 10 hours, and £5 for up to 24 hours.

Regular visitors can pay £9 for a seven-day ticket, and there is free parking for 15 minutes when dropping off people.

Parking-charge reductions are available for patients or visitors attending for more than seven days and longer-term permits, valid for up to one month, can also be obtained.

A spokesman for Pennine Acute Trust, which runs the Royal Oldham, said its parking policy was being reviewed to standardise parking reductions and advertise them more widely, and patients will be consulted.

A Macmillan survey found cancer patients made an average 53 trips to hospital and spent an average of £325 on parking.

Parking charges have been scrapped for cancer patients in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and will be free in Wales by 2011.