Being pregnant is so expensive!- Hospital parking!

[HJWT]

Without even THINKING about the baby stuff, bigger clothes etc.... HOSPITAL PARKING! 🤣 iv spent £10 this week on parking! I guess it doesn't apply to people who only go for 2 scans and then to the hospital to give birth but iv been sooo many times iv spent a fortune 😬

Park further away and walk?

Does your hospital not do any sort of frequent flier pass?

Ds is a regular at 2 hospitals so I spend £40 to get passes for both which saves a fortune

I parked in the supermarket over the road from our hospital and walked.

Hospital parking is an absolute rip off. I wouldn't mind if the nhs got the money, bit they don't. And often the case parks themselves are crap so wtf are you paying for?

Maybe you could park further away and get the bus in, though annoying. Fortunately i work at the hospital, so iffy i ever needed multiple scans i guess more convenient.

Park further away and walk?
Not possible at my hospital, only residential streets for permit holders and quite far really.
I also had severe PGP last time. How is this comment helpful?

Waterandmilk

Because at my hospital you can park further away and walk...

Because at my hospital you can park further away and walk...
Good for you.

Ha! Try giving birth at st Thomas - our car park bill was £200 for the time I was delivering. And that included my husband taking the car home once the baby was delivered, and going and getting it again when we were ready to go home.

I'm with you on this. The nearest free parking that doesn't require a residents pass is 10/15 mins away WITHOUT pgp to slow you down....

Then there's actually finding a space. That normally takes me about 35 mins. Last time I got abuse from people who said they'd been looking for an hour.
I find a lot of people park outside women's health, that aren't going to that department and head up to the main hospital. I do think there should be some spaces reserved for women in labour or heavily pregnant ad attending appointments.

One poor woman recently had a middle aged man threatening her because she was able to park and he wasn't. I spoke to her and she was visiting her son in the ICU.

You are being a bit ridiculous. You chose to be pregnant (I am assuming) and have to factor in all costs. Imagine being actually ill and having to pay the parking visors for clinic visits and treatment.

That aside I don't think you should have to pay parking at any hospitals.

You're lucky you gave any hospital parking. My local hospital has none at all. Drop off emergency only (15 mins max). Many people park in the nearby shopping mall and get a free shuttle bus.

In Wales near where my mum lives there is completely free hospital parking. Acres if it. However there's hardly ever any space at all because people use the carpark and all day free parking and walk into the town centre for work.

Towards the end of my pregnancy I was going in three times a week at £7 (for 90 minutes!) a pop, and I did indeed resent it! You'd have to walk literally a couple of miles to park elsewhere for my local hospital - I did also try getting the bus but the journey took 15 mins by car or nearly an hour by bus, because you had to change, and it was bad enough taking all that time off work for appointments - dragging it out like that really felt like I was taking the piss.

I had this with my second. Following complications with my first, I had lots of consultant appointments as well as scans. Now on street parking for miles unless on a meter. Tiny hospital car park, with nothing specifically for maternity, or actually close to maternity.

Two buses would have been possible, but with a 2 yo in tow as well, not ideal.

Also you had to pay for the time you wanted in advance, so to avoid running the risk of appointments running late, and having to keep having to walk miles to buy another ticket (probably just at the moment you were finally called in), you ended up paying for much longer than you actually needed.

At least now they have adjusted the system so that you pay at the end of your visit, so only pay for the time used (even though that will include the hour spent driving around looking for space, and not actually parked).

I park in a nearby residential street and walk, the ones closest to the hospital are permits but it only takes about 5 minutes to walk from where i park. Even heavily pregnant it's not too bad as it's a flat walk.

The car park at our hospital is tiny for quite a big hospital so it's almost impossible to get a space around visiting times anyway, on the off chance there is a space they are too small to get out of with a third trimester baby bump!

At another hospital when my dad was in it was over £1 an hour, and they didn't offer any reduced rates- my mum spent over £200 in a few weeks because she didnt want to leave him, then when he died it cost us £30 per car (3 cars!) for the day and they wouldn't waive it but made us walk to other end of the hospital for a cash machine!

Waterandmilk

Piss off.

It was a valid suggestion.

What's your amazing advice?

You are being a bit ridiculous. You chose to be pregnant (I am assuming) and have to factor in all costs. Imagine being actually ill and having to pay the parking visors for clinic visits and treatment.

OP clearly isn't having a straightforward pregnancy, for whatever reason, so I can't see why that's different to anyone else with a health condition that requires them to go to the hospital a lot? I always think the 'well you CHOSE to be pregnant/it's not an illness' line is a bit twattish, but here it seems particularly inappropriate, as no one chooses to have a pregnancy that requires lots of hospital visits.

To be fair tho it's probably much cheaper than getting a bus in? £10 a week doesn't sound too bad unless you've only been once.

Usually parking around urgent care centres in hospitals is free / cheaper, as hospitals try to encourage their use. So if you park there and walk it might work out cheaper.

Newaccount But no one chooses to be ill either and they still have to pay the parking costs.

Hospital parking is horrendous. Our old hospital never charged and we could always find a space. They built a brand new hospital and I was relieved to find that the parking was free there too! If ours can do it then why are others charging the Earth? Our is a huge monster of a hospital. If there are charges at all then it should be small amounts and all proceeds to go into the NHS pot.

OP wasn't arguing for free parking for pregnant women, was she? If so then I agree that that's unreasonable - no one at a hospital wants to be there. I think she's perfectly entitled to moan about it though - as entitled as any other hospital user. It was the suggestion that she shouldn't complain because she'd chosen to be pregnant and wasn't ill that I objected to.

I doubt anyone really costs in hospital parking fees into their budget. Hospital fees are just annoying pregnant or not though. There is no reason for them to be so high.

When my dad was ill we were paying about £20+ a day as we'd be there 6 hours visiting. By the end when he was in itu we got free parking. I'd have thought you would at least get a reduction during labour?

At Addenbrookes if you have an outpatient firm you only pay £3.30. So might be worth it to just ask, if you do have lots of appointments. All hospitals are different obvs but not everyone is very good at pointing things like that out so you gotta ask.

@sar302 so why not just get a taxi or Uber to st Thomas's, like most mums do at London hospitals?

Yes I know paying for parking is a pain but sadly it’s just one of those things. Can you really complain about paying to park at the hospital when all of your treatment there is free at the point of the treatment though? Or would you rather the NHS subsidised parking but stopped other aspects of healthcare in order to recoup the money? The NHS has a finite amount of money - parking is not where it needs to be spent!

Thankfully when I was pregnant I was able to travel by train and walked a small way from the station to the hospital most of the time, but as I got bigger, and with SPD, I drove to the last few appointments.

It was a bit of a lottery finding a space but the thing that made me laugh the most was the size of the parking spaces outside the Women's hospital! One time I got the last space in the car park but had to re-adjust my car 4 times, ending up nearly touching the passenger side of the car next door, just to be able to open my door wide enough to get out of the car! Clearly the NHS needs to introduce a valet service