Hospital parking can be horrible.
I get the arguments about how people should plan to go early, I do, but that’s not always a solution that works.
I got caught out badly for one hospital appointment - I arrived at the entrance to the hospital car park an hour and a half before my appointment. I’d assumed that arriving 90 minutes early would have left me more than enough time to find a space. But no.
The entire car park ground to a halt. The visitor car park at this hospital has an automatic entry barrier, it only lets cars in if there’s a space. So once it’s full, it’s one out, one in. The route to the visitor car park is on a one way system through the staff car park, so you can’t see the queue for the visitor car park until you’re in the staff car park.
And once you’re in the staff car park, in a stationary queue past you’re stuck. Once you get past a certain point, there’s no way to turn around, no way to access the exit lane until you’re the car at the very front of the queue.
I was stuck in that queue in the staff car park for over 2 hours, so ended up half an hour late for my appointment. Although at least the secretary at the clinic answered the phone when I rang to explain that I was stuck in the queue. She didn’t sound surprised, and did manage to arrange for me to be moved to the end of the list in the clinic. I guess I’m not the first person to have been caught out like that.