Halifax Infirmary offers valet service to emergency department patients

The Nova Scotia government will pay a private company as much as $1.4 million to provide valet service at the province's largest emergency department.

The free service has been available since Sept. 16 at the Halifax Infirmary to help patients who drive themselves to the hospital but are unable to find a parking spot in the temporary lot outside the emergency department.

The space was created as part of the plan to deal with the closure of the Robie Street parkade and the need to reroute traffic around the demolition site.

Although officials have been planning the removal of the parkade for years, the details and the impact on the emergency department only came into full focus this summer, according to Dorothy MacLeod, senior clinical director of the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre redevelopment project.

"The full implications to the emergency department [and] that specific surface parking … the design and the changes for that space and the construction schedule have only been known much more recently," said MacLeod.

"It was as recently as this summer that we really understood the full implication."

Contract runs until 2028

There are 26 parking spaces in the temporary lot but according to Nova Scotia Health, "on average 50 cars per day need parking there."

MacLeod said officials had to come up with a solution in a hurry and that's why the province opted to hand the job over to parking management company Indigo Park Canada rather than issue a public tender.

The contract runs until March 31, 2028, with options to extend it or cancel it with 60 days' notice.

Valets drive patients' vehicles to reserved parking spaces in the $30-million parkade on the side of the hospital opposite the emergency department.

That ensures those who need emergency care have a spot in the 500-vehicle parkade, without having to cross from one side of the hospital to the other to get their care.

There is no mention of the service on the Nova Scotia Health website, nor is it included in a video detailing the changes involving the hospital entrance and parking posted in August.

MacLeod said that's because the service hadn't been secured when those public service announcements were made.

"It's certainly well identified on site, so not something we've thought to provide promotion about online at this point in time," said MacLeod, who added the need for the service would be reassessed from time to time.

According to Nova Scotia Health, valets parked 219 patient vehicles between Sept. 19 and Sept. 30.

The service is available from 7 a.m. to 11:45 p.m.

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