Parents of boy, 11, with blood cancer in debt as they are forced to spend £3,400 on parking for hospital visits
THE parents of an 11-year-old boy with blood cancer say they are forced to spend £3,400 on PARKING just to take their son to hospital for treatment.
Jay and Jo Sturman travel the 166-mile round trip from their home in Louth, Lincolnshire, to Sheffield to be with their son Darcy, but say they are crippled by rising fuel and parking costs.
“We have no chance of being able to park there.”
Instead, the family pay £16 a day to park in a private lot as the handful of spaces at the hospital in Sheffield are “always taken”.
The Government has pledged to provide free parking for parents of sick children, starting next month.
"For example, in order to be with Darcy for his second transplant his parents will have to spend a further £900 on parking alone, this is with a 50% reduction - despite the Governments recent pledge of 'free-parking' from 1st April 2020."
Darcy has taken part in clinical trials with chemotherapy drugs alone costing over £40,000.
Sun Online has reached out to Sheffield Children's Hospital for comment.
Other parents of sick kids have also spoken of their rising debts.
Rachel and Chris Nelson were both forced to quit their jobs when their six-year-old son Blaise was diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumour.
They said they were so poor that they were living on Universal Credit and were forced to eat his leftover hospital food.
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