Plea to reduce parking charges at govt hospitals
Contractors at government hospitals in the city are allegedly charging exorbitant parking fees for vehicles, surpassing the outpatient department (OPD) registration fee.
Patients are forced to pay Rs 20 to park their vehicles, while the OPD registration fee is just Rs 10. This disparity has raised concerns among patients, who feel that the parking fee is too steep for them.
“The ideal parking fee for cycles and motorbikes should be Rs 2 and Rs 5, respectively,” said Joginder Singh, a patient. It is absurd that visitors have to pay more to park their vehicles than for a specialist doctor’s advice. This is a clear case of fleecing patients who are already burdened with medical expenses, he added.
Patients also complain that private contractors, who lease the parking spaces from the hospitals, run the parking slots as they deem fit. “Ideally, as a patient is paying to the hospital, he or she should be allowed to park their vehicle free of cost,” said Ram Kumar, a visitor to Guru Nanak Dev Hospital. He added that a nominal fee for maintenance or security can be charged, but the facility should be user-oriented and not profit-oriented.
Interestingly, even after charging parking fees from visitors, the parking contractors do not take any responsibility for the safety of the vehicles. The parking slips issued to the public read that the contractor is not responsible for removable items, such as headlights, and just one-fourth of the cost of the vehicle would be paid after six months in case of theft.
“If the parking attendants are not responsible for the safety of vehicles at hospitals, how are they eligible to charge a fee? This is a clear case of exploitation, and the hospital authorities should take immediate action,” asked Harbhajan Singh, another resident.
A Civil Hospital official claimed that the parking lots were auctioned to private contractors according to the rules and the hospital does not have anything to do with it unless there was a complaint from a visitor. However, patients argue that the hospital authorities should take responsibility for ensuring that patients were not fleeced by private contractors.
