Parking at John Hunter Hospital is an "absolute nightmare" for staff and the general public and could get worse when the site is redeveloped, nurse Matthew Rispen says.
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Mr Rispen, the nurse union's John Hunter branch secretary, highlighted the problem amid an uproar over parking fees.
At a rally on Friday, about 150 nurses and midwives expressed opposition to the NSW government's decision to reinstate parking fees at the hospital.
Members of the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association attended the rally on their own time - some in their lunch break and others during a day off.
Since the start of February, healthcare staff have been paying up to $21 a week to park at work. These parking costs had been waived during the pandemic.
The union's assistant general secretary Michael Whaites said the fees meant the government was clawing back almost half the 4 per cent pay rise that nurses received last year.
Mr Whaites said nurses and midwives should not be "required to pay to come to work".
"They can't rely on public transport, particularly those finishing their shift late at night or early in the morning," Mr Whaites said.
"You can't have nurses standing around waiting at an interchange in the middle of the night."
Mr Rispen said recruitment and retention of nursing staff in the Hunter was "notoriously difficult", a problem that the "parking disincentive" would worsen.
The NSW government said free parking for staff was "crowding out patients and carers from accessing parking".
Mr Rispen said nurses, midwives and other healthcare staff "have to be at the hospital as well".
"It's like they're saying we're the problem, but it's the government's lack of planning and infrastructure that has caused this."
He said patients tell him about visitors driving around the hospital's car parks for more than an hour, without finding a space.
"There is a major shortage of parking at the hospital, especially during weekdays," he said.
"The staff and public car parks are separated at the John Hunter. But the problem is the staff parking gets full, so staff have to park in the public spaces because there's no parking anywhere else."
Mr Rispen said nurses arrive at work early and "sit in their cars for an hour or more before their shift starts" to ensure they can get a park.
"It's taking them away from their families," he said.
John Hunter branch official Linda Mobbs said traffic into the hospital was terrible.
"You have to leave at least an hour earlier than you had to before," she said.
"Getting home you're often in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam for half an hour to an hour to even get to the main road."
She said staff had been so frustrated, they've "rung their manager, burst into tears and gone home".
Some hospital staff had to park elsewhere and walk to work, despite timed parking in surrounding streets limiting options.
For nurses on evening shifts who finish at 10pm, this raised safety concerns.
"They say security will escort you to your car, but the demands on security at John Hunter... it's impossible," he said.
He was concerned the parking problem would worsen with the $835 million expansion of the hospital, despite it including more multi-storey car parking.
When it approved the expansion, the NSW Department of Planning said it was "satisfied there will be an adequate supply of parking spaces".
A more pressing concern for the union was that about 150 car parking spaces were closed due to the construction.
The government announced in October that a free park-and-ride shuttle service would return to John Hunter for patients, visitors and staff.
Mr Rispen had seen no sign of that.
A government spokesperson said free parking at the hospital was introduced in 2020 as a "temporary COVID measure".
This was to reduce health workers' exposure to the virus "through avoiding public transport".
At that time, visiting at the hospital was "substantially limited" and elective surgery was paused.
