BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following is in response to 'LETTER: Reader 'sick and tired' of paid parking around city,' published Aug. 25.
Bud York poses a good question regarding paying to park at medical facilities, and I completely agree with him.
It is very interesting that the property managers who demand we pay for visiting our doctors also manage properties housing convenience stores, pizzerias, hairdressers, etc. Why are they not asking us to pay for parking at these premises?
The reason is very simple. If you had to pay to park at a convenience store, pizzeria or hairdresser, etc., you would soon begin to patronize an alternative retailer. You have a choice.
When you visit your doctor, you almost always have to visit a specific doctor. You cannot transfer your allegiance to another physician. Even with optometrists, dentists, audiologists, and pharmacists, you have a choice.
If people stopped patronizing those health-care specialists whose landlords charged for parking, these retailers would complain to their landlords and threaten to move out – or they would just move.
It is clear that landlords penalize folk visiting doctors simply because they can. I am not sure if you should complain to the municipality or the province, and even less certain what these governments could do about it.
The situation with Royal Victoria hospital (RVH) is slightly different. Revenue from parking fees at RVH goes toward the hospital’s fundraising.
Health care costs money. You can pay for it through taxation, and the bulk of health-care funding indeed comes that way. However, it is insufficient.
RVH also relies on other income streams including citizens’ donations, a gift shop, parking revenues, rents paid by food concessions in the RVH “food court”, etc.
Finally, a small “army” of RVH volunteers work hard to provide services the hospital would otherwise have to hire people to perform.
If you want free parking at the hospital, you should ask the province to stop short-changing health care.
As far as your MP is concerned, they are free to move to other premises where the presence of commercial retailers ensures the landlord cannot easily impose parking charges. If your MP doesn’t understand this, perhaps they shouldn’t be a (highly paid) parliamentarian.
Peter Bursztyn
Barrie
