All Cancer Patients should receive Travel and Parking Costs - Armstrong
Billy Armstrong, Ulster Unionist Assembly Member for Mid- Ulster fully endorses the campaign by Macmillan Cancer to urge Government to ensure that all cancer patients get free hospital parking and to ensure that all cancer patients can claim back the costs of their travel, not just those on benefits.
Billy said: “Travel is especially costly for cancer patients, particularly those from the West of the Province who often face round trips of more than 100 miles and because of the nature of the treatment it requires them to make frequent visits for treatment, often on a daily basis over a period of weeks – the costs quickly add up. A poll of 1100 patients found that people in Scotland spent an average of £636 on parking and travel costs at a time when they are possibly experiencing a loss in income.
It is morally wrong that any cancer patient – regardless of income – who is undergoing regular treatment for a potentially life- threatening disease should be forced to pay for unavoidable travel costs. Patients with cancer are a special case because of their frequent, and often lengthly, journeys to hospital and the exceptionally high travel costs they incur as a result. Their travel costs should be fully reimbursed without a means test and they should be exempt from parking charges.”
Billy added: “There is a subsidy scheme to recoup travel costs, but it is means tested, meaning only about one in 20 receive it. In light of the huge profits that a private company, which operates the car park at Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, the very least that cancer patients, should expect is free parking at all hospitals in Northern Ireland. People with cancer shouldn’t have to fight for benefits or concessions when all their effort is in trying to fight the illness itself.”