2024-02-25 14:00:09
More and more paid parking lots in hospitals and clinics. For a majority of users, it is one pill too many. However, interviewed in the spring of 2023 by BFM-TV, the Minister of Health at the time, François Braun, declared: “I am not going to solve the problem of the cost of hospital parking lots. »
Contested by patients and their loved ones, hospital parking lots represent a growing market for private, public and semi-public operators. “If there is a dynamic sector where we are building today, it is that of hospitals and clinics”confirms Jean-Laurent Dirx, president of the National Federation of Parking Trades.
The outsourcing of parking management at these sites began in the early 2010s. An initiative driven, according to establishment managers, by the need to concentrate their resources on the care and purchase of equipment. A reaction, also, to the use of their parking lots by motorists who took advantage, without being entitled to it and without paying, of spaces reserved for employees, patients and visitors.
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Private groups, such as Indigo, Q-Park or Effia, provide them with a turnkey solution in exchange for a concession: “Many lack surface land and are now asking us to build high-capacity structures, often exceeding 1,000 places”, confirms Michèle Salvadoretti, general director of Q-Park France. This operator alone manages 15,000 places, spread between a dozen public hospital sites and a few private clinics, including the Brest University Hospital (more than 3,000 places) and the Nancy University Hospital, nearing completion.
Much to the dismay of visitors
The market leader, Indigo, also manages around 15,000 spaces spread across 28 sites. “We optimize their traffic flows by offering guidance to the place, charging stations for electric vehicles, a drop-off zone for emergencies and specific arrangements for medical transporters and health personnel”, develops Sébastien Fraisse, chairman of the management board of Indigo. Nearly 60,000 spaces managed by private and public operators have switched to paid parking.
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A development which is taking place to the great dismay of visitors, the latter criticizing hospitals in particular for making profits at their expense. “When we charge for parking in public hospitals, we affect access to a health service. This deserves at least regulation from the State or “Secu”, judge Frédéric Bizard, economist specializing in health and social protection issues. This is why “Secu” offers patients an agreement on request. There are also few establishments that make their parking lots profitable. “Revenues are most often not enough to cover investments and operating costs. Many hospitals partly subsidize the concessioned activity”, points out Ms. Salvadoretti. The debate on the regulation of the cost of parking is far from over.
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