BY ALANA MITCHELSON
Patients face “nightmare” parking hassles outside Geelong’s Andrew Love Cancer Centre.
They demanded action after the Indy last week revealed that City Hall was reviewing a Barwon Health submission to address the parking issues, blamed with placing additional stress on cancer patients.
Lara lymphoblastic leukaemia patient Marah Wilson said she had struggled with parking since first attending the centre in March 2014.
“Obviously when you’re attached to a drip you can’t just get up and feed money into the metre.
“You never know how long you’re appointment will run.
“Mine could last anywhere between an hour to four hours.
“I always try to find a close park because after treatment I feel physically very washed out and I just want to get home as soon as I can.
“If your appointment’s not before 9am or just after lunch you’ve got no hope of getting a spot within the on-site carpark.
“I’ve driven for half an hour before finding a park.”
The 34-year-old mother of three said her wheelchair-bound mother was also struggling with the parking shortage.
“She found it very difficult to come in to visit me. There are only about three or four disabled parks within the Andrew Love car park so she’d often have to come from right around near the maternity unit of the hospital because they fill up fairly quickly.”
Ms Wilson was grateful to the centre’s nurses for topping up her meter during treatments.
“Those nurses are wonderful, brilliant people. I’ve seen them offer to put money in the metre for other patients, too, so it must happen fairly frequently.”
Lymph node cancer survivor and former Andrew Love patient Brad Moore called the parking situation “a nightmare”.
“Smaller towns have a heap of parks for their hospitals and Geelong is no longer a quiet country town.
“Years ago, and I’m talking back in 2010, people had suggested ways to make parking easier for patients, like having a five-hour parking bay for patients.
“And it’s not only tough on patients but the people who actually work there and visitors too.
“My wife had to zip out every couple of hours to feed the metre and when you’re there often – it’s quite dear.”
Former patient Nola Bufton said she parked opposite Old Geelong Gaol when she first started treatment last March.
“I’d walk down to Andrew Love and then after the appointment I’d walk around the block to the main entrance to go to the pharmacy for my chemo tablets, then walk up to car from there.
“I could be there for up to two hours. It was a tough walk some days.”
Ms Wilson said the nurses were already busy enough without Barwon Health’s proposal that they be able to apply for parking-fine exemptions for patients whose appointments went overtime.
“There should be some kind of a pass, similar to a disability pass, that allows cancer patients to park within a certain vicinity of the centre.
“It’d be a faster process and you’d get the same results.
“It would relieve a lot of pressure. There’s enough stress on people receiving cancer treatment.”
