'It's not about the money' - ERI staff donate car parking savings to children's charities

Parking charges have been suspended.

Staff at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary have donated money saved on car parking fees to children’s charities.

Parking charges of £7.20 per day or £3 for a nightshift have been suspended for three months during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Following this news one staff member posted on an internal Facebook group with a suggestion for staff to donate the money saved to the Forth Radio Cash for Kids appeal, which goes to a number of local children’s charities.

Parking charges have been suspended for three months.

While it is not possible to tell how many staff members have made donations, there have been over 100 comments on the post from staff saying they have done so.

Sharon Johnstone, a nurse at the ERI, will donate the £20 per month she usually spends on parking for the rest of the period charges are suspended.

For her, having the parking charges suspended was not about saving money, it was about the principal.

She wanted to see Consort Healthcare, which runs the ERI car park, support NHS staff, as she believes that the company’s move to make 150 other public car parks free for NHS staff across the UK was a publicity stunt rather than a real attempt to help.

However the company did not offer free parking at the ERI and hospitals in Glasgow and Dundee, and instead the suspension has been funded by the government to the tune of almost £1 million.

“The idea of donating money isn’t really connected to the original campaign,” said Ms Johnstone.

“I think the push for free parking was more a matter of principal for staff when we saw charges were being lifted in England. I think for a lot of the staff the campaign was never really about the money.

“It’s really nice to see people donating,” she added.

“We wanted to help people at home with kids who would normally get free school meals, and people who are struggling because they’re on zero hours contracts.”

Cash for Kids is Bauer Radio’s network of local charities which operation around the UK.

The campaign has issued a coronavirus appeal to help families on the brink of poverty who are under extra pressure because of the lockdown.

Money donated goes towards helping families with children cover costs for essentials such as food and heating in Edinburgh, the Lothians, Fife and Falkirk.