AN angry Farnsfield woman has demanded a review of car-parking facilities at King's Mill Hospital after she was fined £100 for overstaying while visiting her seriously ill granddaughter.
Irene Hamilton (56) was shocked to be slapped with the bill after a dash to the bedside of two-year-old Rebecca — who suffers from pneumonia and had a collapsed left lung.
This week she hit out at the heartless attitude of car parking contractors E
xcel Parking who continued to demand the cash - even when they had been made aware of the special circumstances.
"It was extremely upsetting and was such a shame because Rebecca had such excellent treatment from doctors and nurses at King's Mill," Mrs Hamilton told Chad.
"But the letters I received from the parking company were completely dispassionate — even when I spelt out how poorly Rebecca was."
Mrs Hamilton, of Quaker Lane, was visiting Rebecca in January - just two days before she was transferred to Nottingham's Queen's Medical Centre for urgent surgery.
Under stress and anxious about her condition, Mrs Hamilton was late returning to her car — but after approaching the attendant she paid the excess and later posted both tickets to Excel parking.
"I had completely forgotten when a month later I received a letter saying I must pay a £100 fine within a week or have county court action taken against me," Mrs Hamilton said.
Despite writing back an 'emotional' letter of appeal to explain how ill Rebecca was, Excel continued to demand the payment in full.
And it took the personal intervention of Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust chief executive Jeffrey Worrall to get the company to finally waive the fine.
"The help we received from staff at King's Mill was excellent and extremely helpful but I would call on the hospital to change the parking facilities," Mrs Hamilton said.
"Visiting a hospital is not like going to the shops, you don't know how long you will be and it could be a very upsetting trip where the last thing on your mind is a parking fine.
"Imagine if my situation had been faced by someone who had lost a relative at the hospital."
Mrs Hamilton has called on health chiefs to introduce a 'more sensible' system where people pay on exiting the car park.
A spokesman for Sheffield-based Excel Parking told Chad this week that he had not received other complaints about parking at the hospital and said the appeals process was 'lenient'.
"I cannot comment on individual cases but this appeal would have been dealt with in the normal manner," he said.
A spokesman for King's Mill Hospital said the trust was very pleased to be able to help Mrs Hamilton with her appeal.
