Need for parking increasing at region’s hospital

The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre sees between 3,000 and 3,500 vehicles per day come through their 1,700 parking spaces.

Senior vice-president of corporate services Scott Potts said with the growing number of programs the hospital and adjacent medical centre offers, they do find there is a need for increased parking spaces.

“Part of our problems relate to the backlog that we’ve had inpatient beds and actually operating beyond capacity on certain days,” he said. “That puts some additional pressure on the lots.”

The hospital has received complaints about people not being able to find parking spaces, but Potts said the number of complaints is relatively small compared to the high volume of traffic they see.

“We take them all seriously and we want to make sure we’re providing the best service possible for the residents,” he said.

Potts added they have about 60 acres of property so they do have the land capacity to expand their parking facilities but they have to go through planning and consultation with the appropriate authorities first.

However, work on the expansions could start by 2012. For now, hospital administration will work on managing the parking facilities they have now as best they can.

“We try to manage and accommodate the needs as much as we can,” Potts said. “Overall we have enough capacity; we just have to make sure we’re aligning the capacity with the area (where) it’s required.”