Pay parking is coming back to BC hospitals

Vancouver General Hospital (Shutterstock)

Hospitals and other provincial healthcare facilities across British Columbia will see the reinstatement of pay parking starting on March 4, 2022.

Pay parking was first suspended nearly two years ago as an early pandemic-time response measure. At the time, the suspension supported patients and hospital workers, who depended on using their private vehicles to reach their place of work as an alternative to shared modes of transportation, especially public transit.

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But the provincial government states today that the decision to reinstate pay parking is a measure to ensure parking stalls are available for patients, staff, volunteers, and visitors.

Furthermore, since April 1, 2020, free parking has cost an estimated $78 million in lost revenue for the provincial healthcare system.

“Maintaining across-the-board free hospital parking is making it hard for patients, staff, volunteers and visitors to find a spot, as non-hospital users are taking advantage of the situation to park for free while conducting business that’s not hospital related,” said Adrian Dix, BC Minister of Health, in a statement.

“These hospital parking spots must be available for those who need them most.”

Parking stalls will be retained for free use for those who regularly receive certain treatments in acute-care settings, such as individuals receiving dialysis or undergoing cancer treatments, and for parents or caregivers of children staying in the hospital overnight. Volunteers will still be able to park for free, and considerations will continue to be made on a case-to-case basis for individuals facing financial hardship.

Although pay parking is returning, the rate freeze that first began over four years ago will continue.

The provincial government also states it is modernizing pay parking equipment to allow patients and visitors to manage their parking without having to return to their vehicles or pay parking stations.

Touch-free payment options and apps will be introduced. For those without access to smartphones, additional pay parking stations have been installed in the common areas of some acute-care hospitals and other locations to shorten the walking distance for this task.

There was a lot of pushback to the fees as we started to experience the impacts of the pandemic and a petition calling for free parking for healthcare workers garnered thousands of signatures.

Back in 2019, a campaign against parking fees at hospitals in British Columbia launched and went as far as calling the existing hospital parking system as “exploitative” for “preying on the weak and the sick.”

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