According to the Health Ministry, the number of parking fines being handed out at Copenhagen hospitals has skyrocketed in recent times.
Last year, 30,577 fines were issued at hospitals in the Copenhagen area – a whopping 76 percent increase compared to just two years earlier.
Critics point to a lack of parking spaces, lacking parking rule postings and inadequate signage as part of the problem.
“The parking conditions offer many practical issues and concerns to those going to hospitals to bring a child into the world,” Mie Ryborg-Larsen, the spokesperson for pregnant women advocacy group Forældre & Fødsel, told DR Nyheder.
“People giving birth can’t use two to three-hour parking limits for much. So there definitely needs to be more long-term parking spaces.”
READ ALSO: Municipalities rake in record parking sums
A national concern
The biggest spike in parking tickets occurred at Rigshospitalet city hospital, Nordsjællands Hospital and Herlev-Gentofte Hospital.
A similar trend is also developing elsewhere in Denmark.
In 2021, a total of 11,527 tickets were handed out at hospitals in north Jutland Region – considerably more than the 1,059 issued in 2019.
According to a recent report from the Federation of Danish Motorists (FDM), the municipalities in Denmark raked in a record amount of funds from parking in 2021.
