{"id":42327,"date":"2018-04-18T10:03:01","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T16:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/?p=42327"},"modified":"2021-02-08T07:32:21","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T14:32:21","slug":"construction-of-new-foothills-hospital-parkade-a-challenge-for-patients-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/2018\/04\/18\/construction-of-new-foothills-hospital-parkade-a-challenge-for-patients-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Construction of new Foothills Hospital parkade a challenge for patients, staff"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>he parkade at Foothills Hospital continues to be under construction, which is creating challenges for patients and staff.<\/p>\n

T<\/span>he Calgary hospital\u2019s parkade project has been under way since September, 2016, at a cost of $60 million. As a result, staff have been required to park offsite and take shuttle buses to the health campus each day.<\/p>\n

Patients and their families, meanwhile, have been directed to the small\u00a0 parkade beneath the South Tower building, which is tight and hard to get to from the main hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only is it becoming a nuisance, it has also limited our staff\u2019s parking space,\u201d said Baiazid Galeeb, a parking associate for the hospital.<\/p>\n

Galeeb started the position this past September and has been parking at the U of C hospital campus with a five-minute walk and a shuttle bus ride to get to work on time.<\/p>\n

The construction has limited his commute to work but Galeeb also said that it limits patients coming into the hospital as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough it doesn\u2019t hurt emergency patients, families who want to visit loved ones who are patients in the hospital have this complicated route when visiting hours are already so limited,\u201d said Galeeb.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have hundreds of employees and parking for all of them has been pushed to every hospital in Calgary, causing our commute to be longer and making it quite difficult when we experience weather that drops to -40 degrees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Galeeb is also a victim of Kennedy\u2019s Disease, a motor neuron condition that is inherited and only affects males.<\/p>\n

The disease limits Galeeb from being able to walk as well as he used to, making the longer commute a hassle for his 6 a.m. shifts, nearly seven days a week.<\/p>\n

The Calgary Herald reported in April 2017, that construction of a new multi-level parkade on the site of the old parking lot would take \u201cat least two years\u201d to complete.<\/p>\n

That means it could be next year before the project is finished.<\/p>\n

Vijay Gupta, another parking lot associate said that the construction will be \u201cwell worth\u201d the wait.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the new cancer centre also being constructed, I think it\u2019s great that they\u2019re building a brand new parkade for all the staff and patients,\u201d said Gupta.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be at least 900 more parking spaces for everyone, added to the 2,000 that already exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Vijay Gupta poses in the office of parking lot 7 at Foothills Hospital on Jan. 20, 2018. Construction of a new parkade at the hospital has lengthened his commute to work every day. (Photo by Anika Khan\/The Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The parkade at Foothills Hospital continues to be under construction, which is creating challenges for patients and staff. The Calgary hospital\u2019s parkade project has been under way since September, 2016, at a cost of $60 [ READ MORE ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":445,"featured_media":42329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_text_assignment-slug":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13,1106,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-42327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-image","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-city","8":"category-news","9":"category-physical-health-and-wellness","10":"category-u-of-calgary","11":"post_format-post-format-image"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/445"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42327"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44497,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42327\/revisions\/44497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}