As is well-documented in this space, I adopted two children with special needs. Both are followed by 2+ departments at local hospitals and adding in physiotherapy and occupational therapy, I would say that on average, we have five appointments a month year round. This does not include speech therapy which at some point we will need to add in, nor does it include any of the typical/average appointments children need: dentist twice yearly, eye doctor once a year, GP visits for strep throat etc, the 5 appointments/month are only related to their special needs. I am also a single parent who works full-time and has very little left over after our bills are paid - and that is not due to an elaborate lifestyle. I drive an 11-year-old car, we’ve been a family for almost 21 months and have enjoyed a couple of nights away that were treated to us, my children don’t have expensive hobbies, neither do I {my hobby is reading books from the library}, I make our food from scratch, hang our clothes to dry and live as frugally as humanly possible. My income simple only covers: mortgage, utilities, house tax, food, car insurance and petrol.
I chose to live in a city for a variety of reasons, namely that as a single parent I needed supports, I wanted to live in a community where we could walk everywhere {I have dreams of ditching the car, though right now I’d be unemployed if we did!} and most importantly as my daughter’s specialized physio is downtown and both my children are followed by various clinics at the children’s hospital, I knew the stress on our family if we had to commute to appointments wasn’t a good thing; it would take too long and would require much time off work, increased petrol costs and parking. {As it is we pay $9 for every visit, but that is a lot better than $25.} I was in the position of being able to think about these things before committing to where to live. Perhaps if I was a stay at home mum, I would have opted for the rural life I so crave {chickens call my name!}, and commit to coming into the city once a week, but in our position it just wasn’t possible.
I recently saw a documentary on hospital parking fees. Families with children, siblings and parents with cancer. Families that need to visit different hospitals across cities for specialized treatment. Families that need to park a mile + away and walk across icy snow because they can’t afford to park. With some hospitals daily parking rates costing $20-$25 per day, families already coping with diagnosis’ were struggling to afford the $600+ in parking fees alone. Add in the medications, time off work, petrol, childcare for your other children, special diets needed and it is no surprise that even in a country where we don’t have to pay out-of-pocket for hospital stays or Dr’s visits, being sick still has an incredibly detrimental effect on health and access to health-care. Doctors in the program admitted that some patients don’t come for as much treatment as recommended because they can’t afford to get there. I myself have thought about the costs, even for free appointments, when things have been tight.
When you have a sick child, or you are sick, or someone you care for is, you need support, real-life tangible support. When my children were in foster care, all of these bills/costs were taken care of. Their foster parents had volunteer drivers, petrol costs covered, childcare fees paid, medications paid for. And while I would never ever want to foster my children rather than adopt them, the services they received demonstrates the true impact of caring for someone who needs more health support than most. {Because I occasionally get asked this question, I will also state that the day I took custody of my children ALL supports stopped. The supports offered to foster parents (those mentioned above, plus payment for their “job” of fostering) were not transferred to me. And honestly and truly, while support with health care would be helpful for my children’s sakes, I’d take years of having to live with extreme frugality to adopt my children because they are worth it one million times over!}. Back to the documentary…
CBC’s Marketplace also looked at what happens to the money earned from parking fees and tickets: the thinking is that it goes to patient care. The documentary, sadly proved that in most cases it goes to the private parking company, with only some making its way to the hospitals. But when you looked at total costs, parking fees were like a penny in a bucket of their total funding. One amazing mayor, Lois Jackson, was featured, a woman whose daughter had breast cancer who saw the impact and changed the by-laws of her city so that paying for hospital parking was illegal. And the hospital dealt with it.
The truth is, hospital parking fees are only part of the major challenges families and individuals face: time of work, medications, petrol, treatment costs that aren’t covered, meals, needing support in the home, honestly, that reality scares me most days. And yes, there are many people with a higher disposable income than us, but there aren’t too many people who could drop a salary and find $1000+ a month simply because they have the misfortune of someone being ill. And when it comes to people choosing not to have treatment because they can’t afford the time off work, or to pay for hospital parking, then it becomes an issue of health equity and a topic that needs action. Parking fees may just be the place to start. No one should be choosing not to have essential health care because they don’t have the money to transport themselves/their loved one to an appointment.
