A long-time nurse says 275 new staff carparks near Wellington regional hospital will make a huge difference to staff safety, as winter darkness looms.
‘We’ve been saying: it’s dangerous out there, we’re leaving work at midnight and arriving in the dark.’
“We do feel like we’ve been listened to — we’ve been talking a long time about the car parking issue,” NZNO delegate and nurse manager Janet ‘Jinty’ Graham told Kaitiaki. “We’ve been saying: it’s dangerous out there, we’re leaving work at midnight and arriving in the dark’.”
Staff were told in February that the hospital had secured nearly 300 more carparks for them, offsite but nearby, for the same cost as onsite parking.
One was about a 10-minute walk away on King Street, behind Massey University; and the other a five-minute walk away at the old Tip Top factory between Adelaide Road and Hanson Street. The Tip Top site had CCTV and a panic button. Both would cost $9.50 per day for permit holders and were available from March 1 and May 1 respectively.
‘We see our colleagues in Auckland and Christchurch where they have no safe parking and we feel we have been listened to and there has been a response.’
Graham said it was good timing, now it was getting darker, and was also happy with the security features.
“We see our colleagues in Auckland and Christchurch where they have no safe parking and we feel we have been listened to and there has been a response.”
Graham said she was also shocked — happily — the charges had not gone up.
“I couldn’t believe it — we’re so used to the cost being put up whenever there is anything new.”
‘Long’ process
However, it had been a “long ongoing process”, she said. Staff had been lobbying management for more than a year for the parks, after a series of safety concerns. Most recently, a nurse going alone late at night after a shift to an offsite carpark found a group of drunk people lying on her car.
Graham — a long-time NZNO delegate — said she had encouraged nurses and other staff to keep raising the issue and ask security staff to drive them to their cars or go in groups if late at night — part of the hospital’s chaperone service.
‘I had to read it at least three times. They’ve made a very cynical nurse shocked — positively so! ‘
Te Whatu Ora Capital Coast operations director Jamie Duncan told Kaitiaki the hospital was “acutely aware” of parking constraints for staff, patients and visitors at the hospital’s Newtown campus and that, for some, driving was the only option to get to and from work.
A collaboration with its provider, Care Park, had resulted in about 275 car parks at King Street and the Tip Top site on a year’s lease, with the option to extend, Duncan said.
“This successful collaboration will increase access to the hospital for patients, visitors and staff, for whom vehicle use is the only option.”
After 30 years in nursing and months of lobbying for carparks, Graham said she couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw the news that new parks had finally been secured.
“I had to read it at least three times. They’ve made a very cynical nurse shocked — positively so!”
In Auckland, Middlemore Hospital staff in 2023 reported turning up early for shifts and sleeping in their cars in order to nab a car park — a problem that continues today hospital sources have told Kaitiaki.
In Christchurch, nurses have previously raised safety fears over a lack of carparks, saying they carry scissors for protection after a student nurse was attacked in 2018 walking home late at night after a shift.