Nurses at Lismore Base Hospital are fed up with a lack of action over paid parking at Lismore Base Hospital.
Lismore’s mayor Isaac Smith has been given until Wednesday to fulfil a promise to resolve the issue of parking for staff around the hospital or a ‘media campaign’ will be unleashed.
Cr Smith was elected mayor nine months ago on the back of promises to resolve the parking situation, which has seen nursing staff forced to park in residential streets to avoid having to pay to park while they work.
Shaen Springall, president of the Lismore Base Hospital branch of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, said he was sick of empty promises.
‘He keeps making promises and we keep hoping something will happen but it doesn’t,’ Mr Springall said.
‘The promise was to change Hunter Street to $2 a day but that hasn’t happened. Currently parking in Hunter Street is $3 an hour with a minimum of two hours, which means any staff member that wants to park there has to duck out every two hours to top the metre up,’ he said.
‘Meanwhile, the carpark at the mental health service has 130 parks, most of which are empty until the afternoon, and only about a third of it is used then anyway.
‘We’ve also been campaigning to the Health Department for that carpark to be opened to staff.
Ms Springall said an undesired side-effect of the parking situation was that residents in streets being used by staff for parking were getting angry and frustrated at the delays.
”They are sick of us parking on their front lawns, especially when they see empty parking at the hospital.
‘Cars have been damaged and abusive notes have been left.’
Mr Springall said his association recently approached Lismore MP Thomas George about the issue.
‘He has a pile of complaints from residents about two inches thick,’ he said.
‘He told us that all the Roads and Maritime Services needed was an application from the council but none had been forthcoming.
‘Until that application happens we want free parking in Hunter Street.’
‘Isaac agreed to do it, and he isn’t doing it.’
Nurses blood pressure moves up and rises when their Council needs counsel and nurses cars are idling waiting for a park so nurses can work. This seems to be a bit of theatre.
It is worth reading Mayor Isaac Smith’s Press Release on this story. Below is an extract that I think it is only fair that Echonetdaily publishes:
“On a side note I would like to make a few corrections to the reporting in the story as it is factually incorrect:
I was sworn in as Mayor at the first offical council meeting on October 10th 2016, so I have been in the job less than 9 months.
I moved a Mayoral minute at the November council meeting to make Dalziel street $2 all day parking. At no point in the past 6 months has that $2 car park been full. So every person travelling to LBH has had access to cheap all day parking.
We are also the only council in NSW that provides any cheap all day parking to staff and visitors at any hospital. A fact I am proud of.”
Ms Springhall its false and misleading to say the carpark at mental health is mostly empty untill the afternoon and then only a third used. That is outright false.
Having been a frequent patient at Lismore Base I have the highest respect for the nurses there and feel that they should be allowed special privileges. They are looking after people’s lives and comforts and are not being treated fairly where parking is concerned.
I’d suggest that they are issued with special stickers, perhaps asked to pay a nominal amount ($2 a day) to park within the hospital’s parking place.