I can't work out if the UK Government is just desperate to buy votes, or if they are plain stupid. They are confusing paying for hospital carparking with taxes. Nicola Sturgeon, the UK Health Secretary is quoted as saying that if you charge people for parking in a hospital carpark, you are taxing them for being ill!
The most curious thing is, the hospital carparks were free less than ten years ago, but with a most of the hospitals being in built up areas, every man and his dog were parking in them. This meant they were always full and genuine hospital patients, staff and visitors could never find a park. The answer they came up with was to charge fees to reduce the impact of these unwanted parkers.
Now all of a sudden, with the Labour government staring down the barrel of a trouncing at the next general election, they decide that its a tax on health and so it must become a free-for-all again.
This will mean that in six months time when there are people screaming about the increased lack of parking in and around hospitals, they will have a bigger headache than now.
Another problem they will have is that the current income from the carparks is also supplementing the services provided by the hospitals, and they will getting next to nothing to replace this lost income if the plan is introduced. So, services will suffer - more screaming.
If this government had any idea about solving this apparent moral problem, they would simply introduce a verification system where patients could leave without payment. They also allow discounts for hospital staff if they wished (I am sure the staff would wish this!), and retain the full fee for others.
There are any number of systems available on the market to facilitate the solving of this problem in a fair and equitable fashion.
Vote buying will not only exacerbate the problem, but will more than likely breed more.
JP
Comments