"Parking adds to the stress and anxiety"

My wife had some blood tests done by our GP. Within 24 hours she got a call saying she had to go to hospital urgently for treatment. Her Haemoglobin was just 63. On arrival at the hospital there is a large car park. It was absolutely full. Not a single space and there were a dozen or more cars circling around waiting for a space. Being already anxious about attending hospital this was additional stress. The top few floors are reserved for staff only. There was loads of free spaces on those floors. 

I suspect that the free parking has allowed drivers from the city centre to park there all day for free with no fear. I further suspect that staff arriving before the commuters are parking in the lower (patient & visitor) areas and not in the staff only areas. 

I feel it would not be very hard at all to enforce parking measures that exclude city centre commuters, by having a system where you can get your parking validated by staff, and if you don't have validation that you pay a full rate. 

Further more, if patients and visitors are not allowed in the staff areas, the staff should not be allowed in the patient & visitor areas.

Outside the carpark enforcement officers were giving parking tickets to anyone parked in any available spaces outside. These people probably parked there because of the ludicrous situation in the car park - the attendants are targeting the wrong people! Being stressed to take a loved on to hospital, not being able to park in the correct place, (the alternative is a long walk for an ill person, at over £15 per day. The next nearest car park has a 3 hour limit) you can see why people take to parking in safe but outlawed spaces.

One such area is marked "ambulance turning" but I have never ever seen an ambulance use it. Could this be additional parking space? I think if effective controls were used in the multi-storey car park, and staff were excluded from the visitor sections then the problem could be alleviated. Why not ask the enforcement officers to spend just one day challenging anyone who parks, then immediately walks out of the hospital grounds where they are going and why they have parked there. 

This situation just adds to the stress and anxiety of using Glasgow Royal Infirmary.