A doctor given two £100 parking tickets after his night shifts overran says it shows that NHS staff are “underappreciated”.
Malinga Ratwatte, who’s training to be a GP in north London, was fined after leaving his hospital car park less than 10 minutes late after two separate 12.5-hour shifts.
“I was shocked really, I couldn’t believe it,” he told Sky News, after receiving the fines in the post.
“I felt it was quite inconsiderate and thoughtless on the part of the hospital.”
According to government guidance, NHS staff on night shifts should get free parking between 7.30pm and 8.00am.
At some trusts, as in Dr Ratwatte’s case, the allowance is extended to 8.30am.
The fines show he left the car park just eight and nine minutes late.
“I just felt very underappreciated,” he says.
“They could treat their staff members a little bit better given everything that doctors have done in the pandemic.”
After his social media post of the fines went viral, Dr Ratwatte says the chief executive of the NHS trust got in touch and has offered to cancel the charges.
But he says they have not yet agreed to extend the free parking allowance.
‘Better off staying at home’
“First-year qualified doctors in the NHS are earning £14 per hour. So if one of these doctors had received the fines that I received, they would’ve been financially better off staying at home on those days rather than coming to work,” says Dr Ratwatte.
Hospital parking charges for frontline healthcare staff were waived during the pandemic in a scheme that cost around £130m.
However, fees in England were reintroduced in March.
The British Medical Association (BMA) is among unions calling for the charges to be permanently scrapped, claiming the costs are contributing to staff shortages.
“We’re at a crisis tipping-point here,” Dr Latifa Patel, chief officer at the BMA, told Sky News.
She says getting rid of the charges “shows that you are valued, that your hard work is valued, and it’ll keep those staff possibly in the NHS for a little bit longer, which is what we need”.
“I just don’t understand what the government thinks they’re doing to improve retention and recruitment and why something as simple as this, which could be a step in the right direction, isn’t considered a priority.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We rightly provided temporary funding so NHS staff could access free hospital car parking during the height of the pandemic.
“This ended on 31 March, but free parking for staff on night shifts will continue.”
