A new online game is encouraging people to outwit Warden Gordon to stop him putting hefty parking tickets on to cancer patients’ cars. Leading cancer charity Macmillan Cancer Support is calling on the public to help it stamp out these cruel parking charges once and for all in England, by signing its petition.

To mark the first anniversary of free hospital parking in Scotland today (31 December), Macmillan is calling on the Westminster Government to follow the other nations’ lead and abolish hospital parking charges for cancer patients in England too.

For many patients like Karen, 46, from Berkshire, who has to go to two hospitals for treatment for her breast cancer, finding the money to park her car is a major worry.

‘I have to attend two hospitals and have to pay to park at both. I’m unable to work and on minimum benefits so I just don’t have the money for this, I can’t even afford bread and milk some days. Worse, I’ve even been late for appointments because I didn’t have the right change for the machines. It’s making me stressed and distressed on top of the worry about my cancer.’

Ciaran Devane chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support, says:

‘Paying hospital parking car parking charges is not a game, it’s a tax on illness.
Please sign our petition to ask Gordon Brown to see sense and bring in free hospital parking for cancer patients in England.

‘It is morally wrong that English cancer patients are still being forced to fork out parking charges just so they can get to their life saving treatment.’

Fifteen years ago cancer patients stayed in hospitals as in-patients, so would not need to travel for care. But now, with modern treatments, patients can be treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy on a day basis then go home – making them vulnerable to car park charges.

Hospitals save £6,000 by delivering a 6-week course of radiotherapy as an outpatient - money which could, and should, be used to help all cancer patients with the cost of parking.
 

For more information:
http://www.macmillan.org.uk