A QUESTION over car park priority has arisen at the Makarios III Hospital in Nicosia.
The problem surfaced recently when the hospital decided to seal off a section of the car park, erecting a gate and allowing access to only certain vehicles. That move angered Grigoris Christodoulou, a patient who frequently visits the hospital. He accuses the hospital of prioritising medical staff and nurses rather than patients.
“My question is who are more important, the patients or the hospital staff. I find it absurd that as patients we have to struggle to find a parking place at the hospital and be forced sometimes to park far away while hospital office workers and nurses stroll in and park just in front of the entrance.
“Shouldn’t the priority be the patients, the ones who are paralysed, the ones who have sick people with them and can’t walk, the ones with sick children that need to be carried? Are the medical personnel the main priority for parking and access to the hospital?”
He added that complaints had fallen on deaf ears until he finally gave up all hope.
“I know other patients who also complain about the parking and they are as baffled as I am about the logic about giving parking priority to medical staff rather than patients. I have been visiting the hospital for quite a while and I have literally lost the energy to complain. In the beginning, I would shout and curse about the problem until I would go blue in the face but nobody would listen. Now I have just given up.”
But hitting back at the claims, hospital director Dr Antonis Hadjihannas told the Cyprus Mail that he found the complaint ridiculous.
“The complaints about that parking area are completely unjustified. That small area is not reserved for nurses like they are implying but is reserved for emergencies only such, as ambulances or people who are disabled. Of course, our prime concern is the patient and that is the way it has always been.”
Hadjihannas added that that specific parking area had in the past become a target for people wanting to con their way into find a cushier parking space.
“I’m afraid that some people haven’t grasped the concept that this is a hospital and not a house where someone can just pull up to the entrance and leave their car there. Believe it or not, we have actually had people conning their way into the car park pretending to be doctors, just so they can park closer. Well that isn’t fair because that person could be taking up a space reserved for somebody who is paralysed.”
