One week after suffering the stroke that very nearly claimed her life, Elizabeth is making a slow but sure recovery. Over the years, I've often cursed her stubborn nature, but it's coming in useful now, because it's enabled her to restore movement to her left side to an extent which has amazed the medical professionals. It's still early days, but she's thankfully on the mend now.
One thing that has really got to me over the last week is how expensive it is to park your car to visit your loved ones in hospital in the UK. Thankfully, we've never been hospitalised in Spain, but we have visited less fortunate friends in Torrevieja and Vega Baja Hospitals. Not only is the parking extensive, it's also completely free of charge.
In Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, however, we've been paying £8 a day so we can spend time with Elizabeth. Not only that, you have to use around a gallon of fuel looking for a free space, which is about as rare as rocking horse excrement. As a Blue Badge Holder, I could claim free parking - as long as I park in a designated disabled bay. Finding a vacant one is nigh on impossible, unless you visit in the middle of the night, which of course is forbidden unless the circumstances are exceptional, so we've just been stumping up grudgingly.
Yesterday, we found out that, as relatives of an Intensive Care patient, we're entitled to free parking, and I'm rather annoyed that nobody bothered to tell us this at the outset. The family have been coming from all over the country, and as well as the expense and strain of travelling long distances to see a critically ill and much loved relative, they're having to pay £8 a day on top of that. By the time they've found a parking space, their precious time with Elizabeth is curtailed, so it's all extra stress when you really don't need it.
According to the hospital website, the exorbitant charges - which also apply to hospital staff, although they pay a slightly lower rate - don't even cover the cost of providing the parking facilities. Maybe if they provided free parking, like the hospitals in Spain, they could save on enforcers, machines and CCTV cameras. Just a thought.
