From the Galway City Tribune – A review of car parking at University Hospital Galway will be undertaken by Saolta University Healthcare Group.

As part of the review, the hospital group has committed to examining the possibility of providing dedicated parking spaces for discharged patients.

Tony Canavan, Chief Executive Officer of Saolta, gave the commitment to City Councillor Declan McDonnell (Ind) at the latest meeting of the HSE West Regional Health Forum.

Mr Canavan said: “A review will be undertaken in relation to the proposal to provide dedicated car parking spaces for discharged patients. We will provide an update after further discussions take place.”

He agreed that there was a ‘serious parking issue’ at UHG, and often there was a queue of cars waiting to get into the paid-for car park.

Mr Canavan said management had taken several steps to alleviate the issue, including providing volunteers to wait with patients while their family members park their car, and providing drop-off spaces.

But he said that there was a shortage of car parking spaces on site for the volume of people who use the west’s busiest hospital, including staff, patients, and visitors.

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Mr Canavan said Cllr McDonnell’s suggestion could be looked at as part of an overall review of car parking at UHG.

Cllr McDonnell suggested UHG gives four or five parking spaces over to patients who are being discharged.

These dedicated spaces would be located close to the door and could only be used by people getting discharged from the hospital, he said.

Often people were not 100% when they are discharged, he said, and they were not able to walk to the car parks.

Cllr McDonnell claimed he had first-hand experience of this – he claimed he was discharged early from UHG when he was not 100%, and a dedicated car parking space for discharged patients like him made sense.

“This is needed now, not after a review,” he said.