By Maura Bowman

A terminally-ill cancer patient yesterday accused Ninewells Hospital administrators of overlooking the parking needs of the site’s most vulnerable users.

The man, who asked not to be named, travels from Arbroath three times a week for chemotherapy and other treatments and his appointments always take longer than the four hours allowed at the two newly-designated, short-stay car parks nearest the Dundee hospital.

He understood patients in his position would not be asked to pay more when their appointments ran over the time and was angry that it took many attempts to find out what arrangements were being made to prevent this.

“The answer was that there is no system,” he said.

“I was told that I would definitely get a ticket, but that I should take it and a letter from the ward to the car park office to have the ticket cancelled.

“After chemotherapy you are certainly not fit to go around chasing parking wardens to press your case, especially three times a week.

“Surely it would be simple enough to have stickers for cars so that tickets are not issued in the first place?”

He went on, “My treatment on the ward has been completely kind and caring and a complete contrast to this monstrous bureaucracy.

“My understanding was that the whole reason for changing the rules was to make these car parks available for patients and their visitors.

“If I want to use them and can’t face confronting the car park authorities each time I will have to pay extra every visit.

“Because of the changes, the other car parks are full and I can’t get into them, in any case. This all causes me a great deal of hassle at a difficult time.”

Site manager Brian Main said the new system has been working well since it was launched on Tuesday, but accepted that some finer details have still to be worked out.

He said that only “exceptional” patients would find themselves breaching the four-hour limit.

For patients who are caught out, an information card is being produced to advise how to have the ticket cancelled.

However, Mr Main continued, an extension to the existing compassionate fob scheme is being planned to help patients like the Arbroath man and should be in place within the next 12 weeks.

The hospital currently has only 25 free spaces for patients requiring regular treatment or visitors with relatives who require prolonged stays in hospital, often in traumatic circumstances.

While Mr Main was unable to put a figure on the number of free permits to be issued, he said, “It’s big numbers.”

Parking charges are to be introduced at the disabled and accident and emergency car parks later this month to fund the extra free spaces.

Mr Main said the hospital would be guided by medical and nursing staff when considering who should have access to the scheme.

Parking at Ninewells is a complex issue which has to be carefully worked out, he continued.

He also said that variable charges only operate on 300 of the 2500 car park spaces.

“We have had parking charges at Ninewells for 12 years and hopefully in just another 12 weeks we will have it cracked,” he added.