Nurse fears impact of Newtown parking changes

Thursday, 30 November 2023

About 1200 hospital staff are believed to park in the streets around the hospital each day. (File photo)

A neonatal intensive care unit nurse living outside the city, says public transport is too long, too ill-timed and too unreliable for her to make it to work at Wellington Regional Hospital any other way by car.

The woman, who asked not to be identified, is among several medical workers concerned about a proposal to reduce parking spaces around streets nearest to the hospital as part of changes to Newtown’s parking.

Wellington city councillors will today consider the proposed parking scheme, which would make many spaces available only as time-limited or residents’ parking, which has proven unpopular with the 1200 or so hospital staff believed to park there each day.

It follows recent public hearings where, of the 1157 submissions received, 51% were in opposition with 42% in support of the parking scheme proposal.

With affordable housing near the hospital “almost impossible” to find the woman, like many of her nursing colleagues, resorted to living further out of the city but that meant public transport was not suitable.

Arriving in time for a 6.45am shift on a weekday using public transport involved travelling for over 75 minutes and making several changes across bus and train services.

The woman had made this journey three times ‒ twice, late buses meant she was delayed to work while an emergency which saw her work overtime meant there was no bus by the time she had finished.

With overtime and shifts finishing late at night a regular part of the job, the woman said buses often didn’t run at the time when she finished work. (File photo)

There was limited staff parking availability on site, which cost about $7.50 a day.

She was concerned fewer parking spaces would make it more difficult to find a park anywhere near the hospital and that “in desperation” staff may park in public parking areas of the hospital, reducing the availability for patients and families.

“I predict the staff that usually park on the street will try to get permits to park in ‘staff parking’, and there are not enough staff parks as it is.”

Staff at Wellington Regional Hospital are concerned the loss of car park spaces will make getting to work from outside the city more difficult. (File photo)

She believed most staff would accept paying a small fee to park on the streets, however the issue was the proposal for 120 minute parks and the nurses could work up to 12½-hour shifts.

The woman, who had been involved in a group submission, felt very undervalued by Wellington Council.

“I don’t know how they expect us to come to do our jobs. I genuinely don’t.”

She said the hospital was trying to improve things for staff, such as having an advisory group to try to keep staff parking costs low and offering security to walk staff safely to their cars.

She wanted to see the council and hospital work to provide more safe parking for staff and patients and, ideally, the development of a larger multi-level parking building accessible to all.

Recommendations posed to councillors included progressing the Newtown and Berhampore Parking Scheme with some suggestions adopted from the consultation period included.