HACKLES will rightly be raised by today's revelation that local hospitals make £1 million a year from car parking charges.
Remember from whose pockets this small fortune is coming.
Worried cancer patients attending crucial appointments. Accident victims limping for treatment. Mums and dads anxious to be at their sick children's bedside. Husbands and wives whose partners lie gravely ill. The bereaved about to identify a loved one's body. Poorly paid hospital staff providing vital services.
Check out the prices that are being charged - sometimes as much as £2 for a paltry 21 minutes' car parking - and it is clear that hospital managers believe there are easy bucks to be made.
Easy bucks that are being made at the expense of often vulnerable people who have no choice but to park their cars outside a place they would rather not be.
Nothing will disguise a simple fact: this is a stealth tax on the sick and infirm, the anxious and heartbroken. And it is indefensible.
This £1 million bonanza comes from cashing in on grief.