Carnage
Today, I drove my mother to the large hospital 25 miles from where she lives. I drove, because using public transport would have required two trains and then a bus. It would also have taken two and a half hours to ensure that we did not miss the second train when any quicker schedule was based on the first train running on time and then changing platforms and onto the next train all within a minute. With her advancing years, my mother finds it difficult if not impossible to climb up and onto public transport and as her health difficulties have justified a disabled parking badge, it made sense to drive and use the bluebadge for priority parking.
Knowing that parking can be tricky on the hospital site and my mother can't rush, we arrived with a generous forty minutes to spare but, reaching the disabled parking bays, noted that they were fully occupied. Of course, that ought not to have been a problem, so instead I dropped my mother at the door and gave her instructions to wait for me whilst I parked the car in one of the more remote car parks.
It was chaos! I drove round and round, but not only were all parking spaces occupied, so too were the grass verges. In desperation, I drove out and along local residential streets. Those clever men at the council had got there before me and everywhere within walking distance was reserved for residents with parking permits.
Thirty minutes after initially dropping her off, I returned to the entrance and was fortunate to be blocked in by queuing but stationary vehicles, so hopped out and pointed my mother in the direction of the ward that she needed. I also took guidance from a member of staff who advised me to use the blue badge to park wherever I could, restrictions or not, and to ignore any parking ticket issued! Needless to say, I found myself an area of paving adjacent to a disabled parking space and squeezed my car onto it, noting that the car next to me may have been in a disabled space but was not displaying the blue badge that permitted it to do so. Indeed as I walked towards the entrance, this appeared to be common place, with vehicles squashed in everywhere at all angles and regardless of entitlement.
I reached the ward just as my mother was emerging from her first consultation room and it was two hours later that we returned to my car. Vehicles were beginning to thin out and yellow penalty stickers were on display everywhere, blue badge holders excepted. With an advertised penalty fee of £150, I was definitely relieved.
They say the NHS is at breaking point. The service we received inside was exceptional but the car parking facilities are certainly no longer fit for purpose. My best guess would be that there must have been at least 500 cars for which no parking was available, leading to absolute pandemonium. When smaller local hospitals are closed down to enable the centralisation of services in one large specialised entity, this is the inevitable outcome. No wonder there are so many missed hospital appointments every day across the country (I assume every hospital is now the same) and an ever growing backlog of people waiting to be treated.
Why too can't we have a public transport system where you can step onto every train or bus without having to clamber up one or two steps whilst minding "the gap"? Wouldn't it be nice too if connections were properly thought out and services worked in tandem to deliver people to where they might actually want to go, starting with the regional hospital?
Will infrastructure get better before I reach my mother's age or can it decline still further? Can we look forward to a retirement with proper health care and transport or do we give up now and accept what could be the inevitable?
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