With so much controversy over the parking at Lismore Base Hospital, those opposed to the fees were glad for a reprieve over recent months during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, but that is about to change.
All-day paid parking along Hunter and Dalziel streets and time-limited parking along Weaver and McKenzie streets and Laurel Avenue will be reintroduced from Monday next week.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lismore City Councillors voted in April to ease parking restrictions around the Base Hospital for a six-month period for healthcare workers and the general community.
Now that the six-month period has ended, parking restrictions around the hospital will return to normal from 19 October.
Changes will be made this week to parking signage and meter displays to ensure parking controls are consistent with pre-COVID-19 operations.
Lismore council want to thank everyone in advance for adhering to all parking signage within the precinct which they say will ensure equitable parking for health workers, hospital visitors and the general public.
HSU calls on Mayor to save free parking at Base
The Health Services Union is calling on Lismore City Council Mayor Isaac Smith to intervene urgently to retain free on-street parking around Lismore Base Hospital after transitioning news that Council plans to re-introduce parking fees, in what they call ‘slugging hospital staff, patients, and visitors’.
HSU NSW Secretary Gerard Hayes said Mayor Smith needed to introduce a mayoral minute at this Tuesday’s council meeting that would extend free parking.
‘Health workers at Lismore Base have been under extreme pressure this year, yet they have tirelessly focused on keeping the community safe and healthy. The least they should expect is to be able to park for free when they go to work,’ sais Mr Hayes.
‘Parking costs can be a significant expense for all health workers – and especially for lower-paid workers like cleaners and kitchen staff.
‘Although the response to the pandemic has been pleasing so far, we are hardly out of the woods. Even if the virus does not take hold in New South Wales, the economic pressures being felt will only grow worse in the coming months.
‘We need to do everything we can to ease the stress on patients, visitors and staff. It’s exactly the wrong time to be slugging people with parking costs when they need to be at Lismore Base Hospital.
‘There has to be a better was for Lismore City Council to raise funds than to slug hospital workers and visitors with heavy parking costs at this time.’
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