A parking warden issued fines to "vulnerable" patients left in tears at a busy hospital, even though the ticket machines were completely out of action. Sophie Ellis, 38, was attending Crawley Hospital in West Sussex for a mammogram on a breast lump when she arrived and found every machine was not accepting cash or card payments.
Chaos at the Car Park
Sophie described the scene as "carnage," with elderly people and those in wheelchairs crying over the fear of receiving a fine. The warden reportedly told people to simply appeal their tickets. Sophie said the male warden "didn't care" about the distress he was causing. A nurse from inside the hospital even intervened to appeal to the warden's "better nature," but to no avail.
Patient's Experience
Sophie, from Cheam, Surrey, said: "It was not my local hospital and I had to drive all the way there and got to the car park and it was absolute carnage and chaos. There were people at every single machine and everyone was trying to pay. With the average age of people trying to pay, I was the youngest there by 30 years. It wasn't taking coins and wasn't taking card payments. The warden turned up and started ticketing cars. He started pushing coins through the machine saying 'it does accept coins.' But when you punched in one hour and tried to put coins in, it was not working."
Sophie managed to download the MiPermit app to pay on her phone after signal issues, but was late to her appointment despite arriving 20 minutes early. She had never heard of the app before. "It was stressful for me getting a lump checked. The last thing I want to be doing is appealing a ticket, and I can't imagine what it was like for the older people," she added.
Council Response
A council spokesperson said: "There was a reported issue on Tuesday with some machines not accepting card payments. We are sorry for any difficulties that this caused, however a range of alternatives remained in place including cash payments and online payments using the 'MiPermit' cashless app so people could continue to pay for parking. We have reviewed the footage from the body worn cameras from the incident and consider that the officer attending the car park acted in an entirely professional manner."
