Ever tried parking at a hospital in Portugal?

I will probably get my knuckles rapped for this comment, but why don’t hospitals put big enough car parks in when they build them?

I have recently been back and forth to various hospitals, and every one of them has entailed an unintended keep-fit hike before even setting foot through the door. I have arrived breathless and flustered, my hair blown to bits, with a slight sheen of sweat on my forehead. Blood pressure is probably through the roof, too.

Parking Problems Anticipated

I know there will be a problem parking, and I always leave plenty of time to anticipate that there will likely be a problem. Sure enough, I might breathe a sigh of relief after negotiating traffic and maybe map-reading on a GPS – where incidentally the instruction to ‘turn left onto Rua de…(something or other) bears no relation to what it looks like, if you are lucky enough to spot a road name as you flash past. You are then heading into strange territory, wondering where you hear ‘please turn around’ or ‘recalculating’, but by then you are definitely lost.

Credits: Pexels; Author: Kindel Media;

When you finally ‘reach your destination’, you join the queue of Would-Be Parkers cruising round the carpark, like cats waiting to pounce on a mouse. Whoever spots a car reversing out and is the nearest gets the prize of the parking space. I had a funny experience this week. I had been lucky in getting a tight parking space at the back of the carpark, and when I trotted back to the car later with keys conspicuously dangling – a sure invitation to Would-Be Parkers that a space was forthcoming, I felt ‘eyes-on’ from the numerous cruising cars, all getting frustrated at the thought of missing an appointment, or worse, perhaps missing the last moments of someone at death’s door. I squeezed myself into my car and noticed a white car parked so close to me that I didn’t have enough space to reverse out to let him in. He was at the head of Would-Be Parkers, all queued up, and sadly for him, in his excitement at taking over my spot, he carelessly reversed into the guy behind him.

Credits: Pexels; Author: DΛVΞ GΛRCIΛ;

Lost Tempers

Well, talk about lost tempers! Both men, old enough to know better, exited their respective cars and had a forehead-to-forehead shouting match, complete with a lot of arm-waving and finger-pointing. I always think Portuguese people (sorry in advance) are arguing when having a perfectly normal conversation, but this was a showstopper. I thought I should hunker down and wait for the first fist to fly, as I was trapped into being an uninvited witness to their respective rages anyway. Eventually, Mr White Car backed down, shrugged, and realised I couldn’t get out to release the coveted spot, and grumpily stood by doing ‘left a bit, right a bit’ hand signals until I was clear.

The point I am trying to make is that hospitals are like Topsy – (a young character from the book ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’) they ‘grow and grow’, and more and more people will turn up for more and more appointments with more and more cars. Wouldn’t it make sense for planners to anticipate growth when they first put pen to paper? Just saying.