Frustrated UCSF Parnassus employees struggle to park due to new policy; empty off-limits spots seen
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- There is anger among hundreds of employees who work at UCSF's Parnassus Campus in San Francisco.
An empty level of parking at the campus could be seen during the middle of the day Wednesday as thousands of employees struggle to figure out where they should park.
New rules went into place Sunday, June 1, and most Parnassus employees are no longer able to park on-site.
"I noticed that that whole floor was empty, and just before that, the valet in front of the building had a sign saying that the valet was temporarily full, so they weren't even filling all the spots that they had available," radiologic technologist Chris Jacinto said.
Jacino saw the same empty spots the day before as well.
"Before this was implemented, they should have had everything, the groundwork for all the transportation laid out, and there shouldn't have been as much miscommunication that we've seen," registered nurse Brandon said.
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"When you're hired into a job at a certain place, you expect to be able to park there, and all of a sudden they're changing this and it's shocking," registered nurse Kristina Amoroso said.
UCSF issued a statement to ABC7 News, saying they implemented the new parking policy "to prioritize our patients' ability to get to their appointments," and that they "are assessing the parking usage patterns of our patients and employees over the coming weeks and will make appropriate adjustments as needed."
One patient told ABC7 News it's been much easier to park on campus with the new rules in place and an administrator said they have to help their patients.
While the hospital says they have not changed parking prices, they are no longer offering employee rates or validations to employees, and without that, 3-24 hours will cost $60.
Some employees were set to park at the Kezar lot recommended by the hospital, but because of graduations happening, that is not possible and they received tickets for parking on campus instead. Some have gone into nearby two-hour neighborhood parking zones and others have gone to a Japantown lot 25 minutes away, but were told there are no shuttles past 9 p.m.
Nurse Brandon said his wife, who also works at the Parnassus Campus, had issues at that lot.
"I don't like to get a call from my wife telling me that you know guy at Japantown berated her for getting a ticket when management there told her to do that," he said. "It's very inappropriate, to me it's a slap in the face."
Many employees say they continue to stand against the changes, but overall feel let down.
"Just a lot of overall frustration, knowing that there's probably not a solution that UC is gonna offer to the employees," Jacinto said.
National Nurses United sent ABC7 News a statement from Dinah Elmesewdy, a nurse practitioner at UCSF:
"We nurses are very disappointed that UCSF management has refused to listen to our concerns about how these parking changes will impact the care of our patients. We know that without guaranteed access to parking there will be delays in care when providers and nurses are forced to wait for the proposed shuttles. In addition, this massive price hike to $60 a day for parking creates a real economic hardship for patients receiving care and for their loved ones."
Since the implementation of these changes on June 1, we have experienced confusion on who validates parking passes, if we'll be towed, and there have been a litany of complaints from our members.
We are determined to continue to fight this action, as UCSF management violated our collective bargaining agreement when they increased the parking by 58 percent instead of the allowed 10 percent.
Finally, we are very concerned that increasing the Parnassus parking to $60 a day will hurt efforts to both recruit and retain experienced nurses who are critical to providing high-quality care."
