The problem
Hospital parking costs are a significant barrier to healthcare access for some people across Perth’s metropolitan area. What should be a simple part of seeking medical care has become an additional cost pressure that affects people who might doing it tough financially as well as needing to seek healthcare.
Why hospital parking matters
This isn’t just about convenience—it’s about health equity. High parking costs can force people to:
- Delay or skip medical appointments
- Rush through important consultations to reduce parking time
- Choose between parking fees and other essential expenses
- Experience additional stress during already challenging health situations
Over the Christmas/New Years break I really hurt my foot, but had literally zero dollars in my account, definitely couldn’t afford a doctor’s visit and they didn’t have any appointments for weeks anyway, and knew I would have to pay for parking if I went to the hospital. I don’t have any family and the friends I had were away or busy doing family stuff considering the time of year.
I tried to ice pack and rest it but a day and a half later it had swelled up like a balloon and I couldn’t put any weight whatsoever on it. I ended up getting one of those stupid Before Pay style mini loans just so I could go to emergency and pay for parking, and it turned out I had partially ruptured my Achilles and developed a superficial blood clot as I had injured the vein.
It’s pretty small in the scheme of things but it definitely had an impact on me deciding to actually go to the emergency room, waiting out a potentially pretty bad injury and overall the embarrassment of having to get a loan with a ridiculous repayment fee just to get access to parking my car to get medical care.”
What we’re doing about it – in 2025
HCC has advocated on this issue a number of times in the past. So far, there has been little appetite from decision makers to review the issue.
However, with the increased awareness of the pressures on household budgets, and stories from people of taking out expensive loans to pay for parking, along with a recent state election campaign that focused heavily on the strength of the WA economy, we are refreshing our advocacy efforts by:
- Collecting and sharing your stories
- In response to a media enquiry, we reached out through our networks to gather real experiences from community members affected by expensive hospital parking. These powerful stories highlight the human impact of this policy and will be shared with local and national journalists to bring public attention to the issue.
If you have a story to share, please take a moment and share it via this form
- Raising it with the new state ministerial health team
- We’ve raised this issue in our welcome letters to the new ministerial team including Minister Carey, the new Minister for Health Infrastructure, and Minister Hammat, the incoming Minister for Health and Mental Health.
- The limitations of the contracts that have been signed with private service providers are sometimes held up as the reason nothing can change, so we’ve highlighted the opportunity to ensure this is not the case for future hospital infrastructure projects – like the new Women’s and Babies Hospital.
- We have also highlighted that another progressive government – Scotland – took the decision to not charge for hospital parking, including buying out private finance initiative contracts.
Understanding the complexity
We know that the issue of hospital parking fees isn’t a simple issue to solve due to:
- Revenue generation: Parking fees often provide income that supports hospital operations
- Private contracts: Many parking arrangements involve contracts with private sector providers, which can complicate pricing decisions
- Infrastructure costs: Building and maintaining parking facilities requires significant investment
- Urban Planning: Limited space in metropolitan areas creates additional challenges
Despite these complexities, we believe that affordable healthcare access—including the issue of public hospital parking costs—is a fundamental right that must be prioritised.
Health equity at the centre
We view expensive hospital parking as fundamentally a health equity issue. It disproportionately affects:
- Low-income individuals and families
- People with chronic conditions requiring frequent visits
- People with disabilities and any patients who may need assistance and longer appointment times
- People undergoing treatment that requires multiple visits
- Families of patients receiving long-term care or who are at the end of life
We know that there are some parking subsidies available to some patients at some sites – but getting access to those subsidies is another administrative task that patients and families have to tackle when they’re already dealing with a serious health issue.
We will continue to pursue this health equity angle at every possible opportunity, ensuring that parking costs don’t become an additional barrier to healthcare access.
Share Your Story
Have you been affected by expensive hospital parking? Do you have experiences or concerns you’d like to raise?
We want to hear from you. Your stories help us advocate for change.
Contact us at: info@hconc.org.au
Our Commitment
Health Consumers’ Council remains committed to:
- Amplifying community voices affected by this issue
- Working with government and healthcare providers to find solutions
- Ensuring health equity considerations are central to parking policy decisions
- Monitoring new infrastructure projects to ensure they include affordable parking provisions
- Continuing our advocacy until meaningful change is achieved