Imagine coming to the hospital and having to walk through snow and ice from the furthest parking lot available—on crutches.
That’s the reality for some patients at Bozeman Deaconess Hospital and the parking situation is ruffling some people’s feathers.
“It’s the worst, I had to drive around for 10 minutes trying to find a parking spot so I didn’t have to walk too far today,” Said Wren Sewell.
Wednesday marks 4 months since Sewell went through her fourth spinal fusion surgery in December. She says her 10-minute hunt for a parking spot today was nothing compared to her previous experiences at Bozeman Deaconess.
“The day I came in and found out I needed another back surgery, I came into the ER and it was packed,” said Sewell. “It was just a line of people driving in circles trying to find a place to park while their loved one is inside all alone waiting.”
Many folks have to cut their losses and park in the furthest lot, Lot E.
Sewell remembers having to walk with crutches in the wintertime, from parking spots far away from the building. Today, she wears a prosthetic around her torso, which still limits her mobility to some extent.
“Not all of us have handicap stickers because what we’re going through is temporary,” said Sewell. “They’re building so many new things, but doing nothing for parking, they’re actually putting parking further away.”
Chief operating officer and nurse, Kallie Kujawa, says patients and visitors feeling banished to Lot E might have something to look forward to in the future.
“We’ve explored parking garages and that’s definitely a part of our future master facility planning,” said Kujawa.
The newest plan, according to Kujawa is designated RV parking sites in the back of lot E for patients traveling long distances and needing a place to stay.
For more details about onsite RV parking, including the application form, rules and regulations, and facility map can be found on the Bozeman Health Onsite RV Parking web page.
For those not looking to park an RV at the hospital and who are still circling around in their car hoping to luck out, Kujawa says they’ve been looking at space to expand their surface parking outward, but adds, "Right now, we have enough surface parking."
When asked how many parking spots are available at Bozeman Deaconess, she replied, “I don’t know, but I do know a lot of our spaces are usually available in Lot E."
Sewell says this disappoints her.
“The community is growing, so we need to take care of parking here and make it easier for us to get where we need to be,” said Sewell.
