TS Government Hospitals still brazenly collecting parking fees

Kondapur: The state government issued orders regulating collection of parking fee at hospitals and malls after receiving several complaints from the public a year ago. But the hospitals across the city including government hospitals continue to charge parking fees from the patients and visitors.

Despite providing free parking space, it is illegal for hospitals to collect parking fees. It is time the officials acted tough with the hospital managements, say visitors and attendants of patients. A few Hyderabadis approached the consumer forum and filed cases against the hospitals as the officials were not strict.

Parking charge in hospitals varies from Rs 20 to Rs 30 depending on the duration of parking. They vary from two-wheelers to four-wheelers. A majority of hospitals adopted tendering process and are hiring contractors for collecting parking fees, which is completely a business perspective.

Collectors who collect parking money are also being strict and rude. "I fell short of Rs 3 at a hospital in Kondapur and I was forced to go out and draw money from ATM just to pay Rs 15 parking fees," said Santhosh Kumar, a relative of a patient. The issue of parking fees is also highlighted in the social sites and people from Hyderabad posted several tweets tagging the officials to take action against parking fees.

Taking ground reality to the officials, a twitter handler posted tagging with a proof that, "Hi team, Kims kondapur hospital charging Rs 20 parking fee, its complete against the law I have raise complete to consumers affair. On receipt there is no money mentioned but still they r asking for money. PFA receipt with tweet. Plz stop this parking fees asap." (Sic)

"Pain of parking fee in government hospitals where poor and lower middle class take services isn't it unfair sir? At Gandhi hospital, parking fees are collected by contractors, in demanding ways," questions another tweet.

Speaking for visitors, a department head of the ESI Hospital in Secunderabad said, "Only poor people who can't afford for the treatment visit the government Hospital, but the burden of the parking fees on their heads is unacceptable."

Recently, one Sagar Kankale from Hyderabad raised a complaint against a private hospital in Kondapur for allegedly collecting parking fees. The hospital staff contend that, "We collect parking fee from visitors because several outsiders such as people using Metro stations or MMTS trains are parking their vehicles for more than 7 hours and we could not provide space to vehicles of patients visiting the hospital.

To prevent outsiders from parking their vehicles for long hours, we are forced to charge them the parking fee," said Madhu, a supervisor at a private hospital. "We don't collect parking fees from every patient but only from the visitors. If the vehicular owner could provide us any prescription or any paid receipt from hospital, then the parking is free," said Srinivas Rao Chary, CEO of a reputed hospital in Hyderabad.