State Member for Wallsend, Ms Sonia Hornery MP, has welcomed comments from John Hunter Hospital management that additional parking fees will be reimbursed to employees.
The comments follow a number of complaints from staff, who after having paid for parking through a deduction from their wages, were forced to pay additional parking fees to park in the public car park.
There are 2150 parking spaces allocated for staff parking at the John Hunter Hospital Campus and on any given day there is an undersupply of spots for staff to use.
Utilising the McDonald Jones Stadium car park as a park and ride facility would alleviate parking woes and the daily traffic congestion faced by staff and patients using the Hospital Campus.
Quotes attributable to Member for Wallsend, Sonia Hornery
“I welcome the comments from John Hunter Hospital management that staff can have additional fees reimbursed. That is certainly different to the position they had last month.”
“It is obvious from the number of complaints that we are receiving from staff that management have allowed an oversubscription to the staff parking areas.”
“Despite the parking woes and traffic congestion that brings the Hospital to a standstill a number of times a day, management continues to rule out other options to ease the problems.”
“The simple solution to these problems is staring them in the face – the park and ride facility is being used to ease congestion and parking problems in other parts of the Hunter and should be reinstated for the John Hunter Hospital.”
“The private hospital realises the problem and pays for a private shuttle bus to transport their staff to and from the site.”
“It is time for management to admit there is a problem and reinstate the park and ride shuttle.”