UPDATE
City of Melbourne have revoked the fine after public backlash and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrew insisting he would look into it.
Sorry we missed the mark on this tweet to @KArandjelovic. Given your critical role, we have withdrawn the fine. Royal Melbourne Hospital is being provided with additional frontline worker permits. Please grab one! We have given out 8000 so far to nurses and doctors. 1/2 https://t.co/QpbwS0i2KI
— City of Melbourne (@cityofmelbourne) August 11, 2020
——
A doctor who has been working long hours at a Melbourne hospital has revealed she was given a parking fine for running late, while she was treating the states ‘sickest patients’.
Katarina Arandjelovic, who is an anaesthetics registrar at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, shared the fine on Twitter on Tuesday morning.
She says she finished work at 10PM on Monday, to find the fine on her windshield.
“In lockdown, who do you think is parking in the streets by the hospital?” She said in the tweet addressed to the City of Melbourne and Lord Mayor Sally Capp.
“It is the doctors, nurses, orderlies, pharmacists, physios, technicians, cleaners, cooks, ward clerks.”
Dear @cityofmelbourne @SallyCapp_
I am a doctor at the Royal #Melbourne ICU.I worked 56 hours over four days in helping look after some of our state’s sickest patients.
At 10pm last night, I left work to find a fine on my car dashboard. pic.twitter.com/sA1oKE21lB
— Katarina Arandjelovic (@KArandjelovic) August 10, 2020
“So when you send a parking inspector to Parkville, know that it is these people you are targeting.”
“We make sacrifices and turn up – day in, day out, to serve you.
“So I guess @cityofmelbourne and @SallyCapp_, slapping fines on our cars is one hell of a thank you.”
A spokesperson for the City of Melbourne said “Vehicles parked in residential parking areas with red signs are still subject to restrictions.
“We recognise the invaluable work our health workers are doing, that’s why we’ve issued 9,900 parking passes to frontline workers, including to the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
“The allocation of the temporary parking permits to frontline staff is handled by each hospital.”