Surgeon slapped with £70 parking fine at Manchester Royal Infirmary as he rushed to 'save patient's life'
28.06.2022 - 19:35
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
A surgeon emerged from completing a ‘life-saving’ procedure to be told he would be slapped with a £70 fine for ‘parking on the wrong level’. The fine then came despite NHS staff being exempt from parking charges at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, claims the consultant.
Dr Pratap Dutta, a consultant surgeon working at hospitals across Greater Manchester, was on call the weekend of June 11, and had to rush into the MRI to treat a car crash victim at around 10.20am,. He arrived at the ‘very quiet’ car park and left his car on level zero, before heading to carry out surgery on the trauma patient inside the hospital.
“I was covering the major trauma surgery patients, such as crash patients, for all the hospitals within Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust that morning,” he told the Manchester Evening News . “It has been ridiculously busy the last few weeks, there has been a huge backlog of cases in many areas. It takes a toll on you.
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“There was a road traffic collision and the patient needed life-saving surgery, so I was called in early that morning. I parked in the Grafton Street car park, it was nearly empty as you would expect at the weekend.”
Before leaving his car, Dr Dutta claims there was no staff member at the Parkingeye kiosk where he would usually show his ID badge in order to waive any car parking fees, from which NHS staff have been exempt at the hospital since the start of the pandemic. Upon his arrival back at the car park a few hours later, Dr Dutta says he then found a member of staff and shared his details to go through the process.
But the parking attendant then told Dr Dutta