Community nurses and in-home care workers are set to participate in an innovative pilot scheme to help alleviate longstanding parking woes plaguing Sydney’s Inner West.
In early 2014, four members of the Sydney Alliance Inner West District – St Brigid’s Marrickville, the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association, Cancer Council NSW and the Justice & Peace Office of the Archdiocese of Sydney – focused their attention on Marrickville and Leichhardt in the hope of introducing specialised care worker parking schemes.
The campaign followed revelations that community nurses and in-home care workers experienced significant parking difficulties, impacting on the quantity and quality of care they provided to their patients. It also highlighted that existing resident and carer parking schemes did not meet the needs of community nursing and in-home care organisations.
The Sydney Alliance Inner West District approached the then Mayor of Marrickville Council, Jo Haylen, and Deputy Mayor, Rosana Tyler, and urged Council to address the issue. Councillor Haylen also raised the concerns with neighbouring Leichhardt Council. In August 2014, both Marrickville and Leichhardt Councils unanimously endorsed the development of new care worker parking permit schemes.
Further representations from the Sydney Alliance prompted Marrickville, Leichhardt and City of Sydney to introduce a Joint Care Worker Parking Permit Scheme across all three local government areas (LGA). This decision removes the administrative burden for community nurses and in-home care workers seeking three separate permits across the LGAs.
The Sydney Alliance has continued to work with all three Councils to reach agreement for a single permit, with a single point of access, as part of a pilot scheme. Following successful implementation of the pilot, the Sydney Alliance will work with the three Councils to roll out the parking scheme across all Sydney LGAs.
The pilot scheme was launched yesterday, Thursday 1 October, during a Community Forum hosted by Sydney Local Health District at the Professor Marie Bashir Centre, Camperdown.
The Sydney Alliance is a network of diverse community organisations, unions and religious organisations that works to advance the common good and achieve a fair, just and sustainable city. The Sydney Alliance does this by creating opportunities for people to come together and identify issues that affect them, their families and communities and to engage with decision-makers to resolve these issues. The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association is one of the founding partners of the Sydney Alliance.
Download this joint media release: Sydney Alliance wins parking reprieve for Inner West nurses
