The BC Nurses’ Union is speaking out after hearing nurses in Metro Vancouver are getting parking tickets at work now that free parking has ended at hospitals.
A nurse who works at Abbotsford Regional Hospital says she has received $240 in parking tickets to date, even though she has applied for a pass to park at work.
“I came out after a really hard shift where I had already come out wanting to cry to find a parking ticket on my car, which, honestly, ended up making me cry,” Ashley Third told Global News.
“I love my job with a passion,” she said, “but it’s an exhausting job, it’s mentally draining, so to come out to have to deal with tickets and issues with Impark and hangTag on top of that, it’s just been really stressful.”
Free pandemic parking at B.C. hospitals has now been cancelled by the government and Third said she had to re-apply for a pass and is now wait-listed.
She said she can’t afford the daily rate, which works out to $1,200 a year.
Aman Grewal with the BC Nurses’ Union said it is very disheartening to hear that nurses are now faced with another challenge after all they have been through already and more than two years into a global pandemic.
“We’ve had multiple, multiple car break-ins in the last couple of months but definitely the last month,” Third said.
About two weeks ago, Third added that someone even tried to cut the catalytic converter out of a fellow nurse’s car and ended up cutting the gas line instead. The car ended up catching on fire and was ruined.
She has reached out to Impark about the issue but was told it is only willing to cancel one of the tickets. It did not respond to Global News’ request for comment.
HangTag, which runs the parking app, said it is looking into the matter.
In a statement, The Ministry of Health said maintaining across the board free hospital parking makes it difficult for patients and staff to find parking spots.
The Ministry claimed non-hospital users are taking advantage of the situation to park for free while conducting business that is not hospital-related.
“We’ll continue to work with our partners, including health authorities, to ensure parking remains available for those who need it most. We also now have modernized pay-parking stations that support touch-free payment solutions,” the statement added.
“Last year we were heroes, now we’re going back to paying and getting parking tickets and our cars are getting broken into and I think everyone’s just exhausted with the system,” Third said. “It seems like a broken system.”
— with files from Rumina Daya
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