The efforts of the care staff in recent months may be exceptionally appreciated, but parliamentary questions were asked by Maastricht PVDA Member of Parliament Lilianne Ploumen and Léonie Sazias of the party 50PLUS about the high parking costs that health care workers pay at the hospital. Due to the lockdown measures, many healthcare employees cannot easily go to work by public transport and travel with their own car, because a holiday timetable is in force.
The health care workers who work extra hours to combat the corona crisis were also affected faced incurring extra costs for paid parking at hospitals. Both MPs thought this is an unfair situation, given that healthcare workers cannot circumvent the costs.
In addition, members of the House of Representatives agree times of crisis, health care workers should not have to worry about the extra costs they face because they are even more committed to our society. It would therefore be desirable that these parking costs will either be stopped by calling on the operators of these parking spaces, or that the parking costs incurred by healthcare staff will be reimbursed immediately by the Ministry for Medical Care and Sport.
consultation with the municipalities
In a written response to the House of Representatives, Martin van Rijn, the Minister for Medical Care and Sport, thanked all care providers for the amount of work that is currently being done and indicated that he agrees with the PvdA and 50PLUS that care providers are in this times should not be concerned with additional matters, such as parking costs. The Minister is aware that turning extra hours means that in the current situation more parking is required.
That is why van Rijn has contacted the umbrella organizations of hospitals, the NVZ and NFU. They have brought it to the attention of their members. Both domains indicate that all hospitals agree that the effects of the corona crisis must not have an effect on the extra costs that employees have to incur for work. With regard to parking policy, this means, according to the NVZ and NFU, that virtually all hospital organizations for this crisis period, if necessary, use no or greatly reduced parking costs in consultation with the municipalities.
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