Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Mel Rothenburger

Armchair Mayor

ROTHENBURGER – Interior Health ducks, weaves, obfuscates on RIH parking issue

Nov 28, 2020 | 6:52 AM

INTERIOR HEALTH HAS A PROBLEM it doesn’t want to talk about — a shortage of proper parking for Royal Inland Hospital staff.

This might not seem like a big deal unless you’re the one having to walk back to your car in the dark after a long shift.

I received a letter from a nurse who parked in the public parkade due to running a bit late for work. Employees aren’t supposed to do that. After a 12-hour shift, this employee returned to find a blue ticket on the windshield.

“The ticket that means you will have to pay a fine as well as have repercussions with HR. The blue ticket that makes me wonder how far the public’s gratitude (goes) for doing an already hard job under greater distress and danger to nurses and all medical staff.”

The letter goes on to acknowledge that visitors get upset when staffers take up public parking spots at the hospital.

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“What I want to know is where we, the ones taking care of your loved ones, are meant to park? We get threatening letters from management along with a bus schedule and Impark lots.”

This brought much response from readers who feel very protective of health care workers. They want the problem fixed.

So, I reached out to Interior Health. This really big outfit, which is supposed to work for us, didn’t have anyone available this week from among their hundreds of well-paid bureaucrats to talk about it.

Getting a voice on the phone from anyone in the government bureaucracy is a challenge nowadays. Communications departments, instead of communicating, prefer to answer media questions with vague emails in which questions can be ignored or answered in generalities.

This is what it’s come to on John Horgan’s watch. After a day’s delay, the response I got from IH — with no name attached — consisted of three bullet points.

“Interior Health recognizes that parking at Royal Inland Hospital can be a challenge for patients and staff, especially during busier daytime hours.”

Gosh, stop the presses.

“We have secured three offsite staff parking areas and the Patient Care Tower project will create about 100 net new parking stalls at RIH.”

We already knew that. It was announced a long time ago. How will this help staff?

“We have reminded staff that it is important to use designated staff parking to ensure patients coming to RIH have access to parking.”

We knew that, too. Again, what is being done to ensure the safety of staff?

So, I asked Interior Health to redouble efforts to find someone who could spend a few minutes answering some questions. This time, there was no reply at all.

BC Nurses Union president Christine Sorensen was much more forthcoming. Since COVID-19 came on the scene, she told me Friday, safety issues arising out of inadequate staff parking at B.C. hospitals have been a big concern.

“We have great safety concerns around nurses in general,” she said. Worrying about the potential for being assaulted as they walk to their cars is just one more thing on top of all the stresses caused by the pandemic.

Sorensen said the union isn’t opposed to nurses having to park some distance away from where they work, as long as appropriate security is in place. Other industries, such as mining, face similar parking problems and find solutions.

One suggestion from the public is to create a shuttle service between the downtown parking areas and the hospital. Nurses start and finish according to schedules so shuttles could easily accommodate them. (City transit isn’t an answer because it’s not there when staff members need it.)

I noted that the nurse who wrote the letters was anonymous, and asked if that was just out of a natural worry or if such concerns are well-founded. Sorensen said they’re entirely legitimate based on experience.

She also noted that whether male or female, nurses have reason to be concerned about their safety. She said the issue has the potential to affect patients, too, if nurses start turning down night shifts due to the parking problem.

Some readers wonder how things were allowed to become so chronic in the first place. Wasn’t the old public parkade behind the hospital supposed to be reserved for staff?

Yes, it was. Clearly, it’s not enough.

Parking has been an issue at RIH forever. It was once dubbed the worst parking setup in the entire Interior Health region. The guy who said so was in charge of the hospital’s parking at the time.

A lot of people think parking at hospitals should be free. Currently, as a result of COVID-19, it is. The nurse who wrote in isn’t looking for permanent free parking. Just safe parking.

IHA remains silent. And the nurse, and other staffers, continue to wonder where they should park as they’re looking after us and our loved ones.

“Leaving work I was glad I had parked in the parkade as it was pitch black and snowing hard,” he or she wrote in that first letter. “I was glad that I didn’t have to park 20 minutes away and walk alone in the dark to my vehicle.”

In a second letter, the nurse says Imperial Parking has been ticketing staff who don’t have a permit for the staff parkade. Meanwhile, the public parkade at the Clinical Services Building is like “a ghost town” because visitors are not allowed during the pandemic.

Which raises the question, why can’t staff use it temporarily, especially during night hours? Why was that ticket even written?

So many questions. And no answers from Interior Health.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.