I lived for years without a car with my family, and parking was never essential for us even though we did get sick on occasion. I’d challenge the assertion that it’s “crucial” — at least, it never was for us.
When I was going through chemo, the car was crucial to get to and from my appointments. My immune system was trashed, so exposure to the public was dangerous. I could barely walk. I was out of my head and terribly agitated with the steroids and intense anti-nausea meds, so needed to be contained. I can imagine other situations where a person needs door-to-door transportation to and from a medical center, but isn’t dire enough to require an ambulance. (Frail elderly, heavily pregnant women, rural residents, etc.). Everyone won’t need a car all the time, but some will need it sometimes.
Some intense re-structuring of medical transportation would be required if private cars weren’t allowed into medical centers.
Yeah, those scenarios make sense. A lot of times, people are quick to claim they “have to” have a car to do this or that, when really they mean they have never done it any other way. We did plenty of things people would say they “have to” have a car to do.
That said, I can see in these cases where a car might be needed. Seems like it shouldn’t be that way, but we have the world we have, not the one we should have. We seem to like putting barriers in front of medical care, and the car is just another one of those.
And in the US, at least, financial barriers are far too often insurmountable. Ambulance and “cabulance” (non-emergency medical transportation in an accessible van) rides are incredibly expensive.
There are better solutions waiting out there, and you are right that we have to start where we are. Start with what we have, and nudge it step by step toward the goal.
Some intense re-structuring of medical transportation would be required if private cars weren’t allowed into medical centers.
this is sort of idly shooting off into the air but: i wonder how much of a commitment it’d be for a country to actually make that kind of non-urgent medical transit a baseline facet of their medical service? obviously you’d have to expand the overall fleet of medical service vehicles a lot; ideally it’d also be both free and state-run (i neither trust nor think private actors will finance this, obviously.)
I lived for years without a car with my family, and parking was never essential for us even though we did get sick on occasion. I’d challenge the assertion that it’s “crucial” — at least, it never was for us.
When I was going through chemo, the car was crucial to get to and from my appointments. My immune system was trashed, so exposure to the public was dangerous. I could barely walk. I was out of my head and terribly agitated with the steroids and intense anti-nausea meds, so needed to be contained. I can imagine other situations where a person needs door-to-door transportation to and from a medical center, but isn’t dire enough to require an ambulance. (Frail elderly, heavily pregnant women, rural residents, etc.). Everyone won’t need a car all the time, but some will need it sometimes.
Some intense re-structuring of medical transportation would be required if private cars weren’t allowed into medical centers.
Yeah, those scenarios make sense. A lot of times, people are quick to claim they “have to” have a car to do this or that, when really they mean they have never done it any other way. We did plenty of things people would say they “have to” have a car to do.
That said, I can see in these cases where a car might be needed. Seems like it shouldn’t be that way, but we have the world we have, not the one we should have. We seem to like putting barriers in front of medical care, and the car is just another one of those.
And in the US, at least, financial barriers are far too often insurmountable. Ambulance and “cabulance” (non-emergency medical transportation in an accessible van) rides are incredibly expensive.
There are better solutions waiting out there, and you are right that we have to start where we are. Start with what we have, and nudge it step by step toward the goal.
this is sort of idly shooting off into the air but: i wonder how much of a commitment it’d be for a country to actually make that kind of non-urgent medical transit a baseline facet of their medical service? obviously you’d have to expand the overall fleet of medical service vehicles a lot; ideally it’d also be both free and state-run (i neither trust nor think private actors will finance this, obviously.)