FOR many years parking at Darlington Memorial Hospital has been problematical but I have never known it as bad as yesterday when a whole pack of cars were constantly circling like starving vultures waiting to pounce on the first vacated space.

A check of nearby streets quickly reveals total coverage of parking restriction probably caused by historic difficulties connected to the hospital.

In view of the failure of the hospital to address this issue over many years one is forced to the conclusion their attitude is one of “We do not care - it’s not our problem”. Their only concern appears to be to collect the parking charges and impose penalties on any who breach their parking rules. Indeed they even have a payment system that is very likely to put you in breach of their parking rules as it requires you to guess how long you will be in their hospital when you arrive, rather than payment when you leave – as at James Cook hospital. At a time when these same health authorities are ending services at more local hospitals and compelling individuals to travel further for treatment this is unmitigated arrogance.

Had this been a supermarket there would have been a multi-storey car park on at least part of that site years ago.

And no I did not get a parking ticket – fortunately it was not I that needed treatment and I was able to spend time observing the farce and wondering: how many appointments are missed or delayed because the individual could not find parking; how much additional stress is imposed on patients already stressed with illness; how much anger is generated because the patient failed to guess accurately just how long they would be in the hospital; and, just how much extra pressure is placed on the ambulance services by patients requesting ambulance transport simply because they do not wish to deal with the stress of trying to park at the hospital.

As this issue impacts on many of our local parliamentary constituencies I would suggest that it is one well worthy of a bit more attention from all our local MPs.

John Hutchinson, Richmond