The Irish Patients' Association has called for the establishment of a national policy on parking charges at public hospitals.
Chairman of the association Stephen McMahon said there was effectively a lottery as to the charges visitors and patients faced for parking depending on which hospital they attended.
He said the bill for the provision of parking should be incorporated into the overall cost of acute treatment, and spaces should be available free to patients and visitors.
In particular, the association called for medical card patients to be exempt from the charges.
Mr McMahon said a survey carried out by the association last week found a wide divergence in parking charges. While parking was free at the Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown, Dublin, the bill was up to €2.20 per hour at St Vincent's and Tallaght hospitals.
A spokesman for St Vincent's said the hospital did not make a profit from its parking charges, but needed them to fund the €15 million in borrowings required to build the car park. Patients or visitors who experienced genuine hardship because of the charges could have them reduced or waived, he added.
Mr McMahon said patients with out-patient appointments were being penalised because of the failure of hospitals to introduce an individual appointment time.
"You park your car in the hospital at nine in the morning but you mightn't get seen until one o'clock. Why should patients be penalised for that? In the absence of individual scheduled time slots for out-patient appointments, patients should not be penalised through parking charges due to delays in delivering appointments on time."
"...While there may be genuine concern about the abuse of parking spaces by commuter spongers in Dublin, cost-effective innovation can overcome such challenges. Further to this, the cost of parking in our hospitals should not be driven by local authority parking charges. This is a form of taxation and an incentive to use public transport."
