Hospital parking charges increase

Ninewells is one of the few where charges will not be scrapped

A patients group has criticised the operators of the car parks at Ninewells for increasing charges as fees at other hospitals are due to be scrapped.

From 1 January, visitors to almost every NHS hospital in Scotland will not have to pay to park.

However, the charges will remain at Ninewells because the car parks are run by the private firm Vinci Park.

Prices at the Dundee hospital have gone up by 10p, to £1.70 per visit. Vinci Park could not be reached for comment.

'Taxing the sick'

Margaret Watt, from Scotland Patients Association, said: "I think that [the increase] is quite obscene, quite obscene.

"Do these people not read the papers about the credit crunch and everything else? Could they not have taken their lead from the Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon? Could they not have brought them down to help our people?

"All they're doing is taxing the sick, the vulnerable and the dying and I hope that makes them proud because it certainly doesn't make me proud to think that our people are having to pay these types of payments.

"You've got people in all standards and quality of life - you've got the lower paid people, people on benefits, people who're on pensions, but that doesn't excluded them from paying car parking charges."