VICIOUS CIRCLES: To seek treatment at Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun, one has to first look for the elusive parking space
IPOH: THE lack of car parking space at Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun is a headache for hospital visitors.
The search for available parking space within the hospital compound can take from 30 minutes to a full hour.
Visitors and those seeking outpatient treatment jostle for the limited spaces with hospital staff, who work there on three shifts.
This has led to many frustrated motorists leaving their vehicles illegally parked along the road leading to the hospital, and even the emergency lanes reserved for the ambulances.
A Streets visit found cars parked bumper-to-bumper on both sides of the only road leading to the hospital.
Although there are no yellow lines to prohibit parking there, no-parking zone signs can be clearly seen.
The two-lane road, which leads to the maternity ward, is reduced to a single lane by vehicles parked on both sides of the road.
Ambulances coming in and out of the hospital are slowed down by the indiscriminate parking.
A visitor, who wished to be known as Azian, dreads having to take her wheelchair-bound mother to the hospital for the latter’s twice-weekly treatments.
“I drive around looking for parking space while my mother is left unattended at the emergency entrance,” she said.
R. Muthu, 35, also faces the same problem each time he sends his cancer-stricken mother for treatment.
He was at the hospital at 8am but the car park was already filled with cars, many parked at any available corner.
“I hope the (hospital) authorities will find a solution to the parking problem soon,” he said.
A local paper photographer Muhammad Shahir Noordin, 22, said the parking problem had reached a crucial stage and the hospital should consider charging visitors and even its staff parking fees.
“A hospital is a place where the sick seeks treatment.
“The sick and those ferrying them here should not be burdened by the added frustration of the parking problem,” said Shahir.
He said the hospital should emulate Putrajaya Hospital, which charges car drivers a nominal parking fee to resolve its parking problem.
The parking fees collected, he added, could be used to provide more parking bays and better security for the cars parked there.
“Cars parked along the road leading up to the hospital should be clamped and action taken against the drivers,” he said.
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