How do you deal with it?

With difficulty, Emma referred to it there.

Well, first of all, I guess it's worth noting that oncology patients in University Hospital Limerick do not pay for parking.

However, as Emma referred to it there, the issue that we have is no parking.

The site is saturated.

So it's one thing to provide free parking and not just for cancer patients or indeed perhaps a maximum daily charge, but for all patients.

I don't think it pertains or should pertain just to cancer patients.

You don't need that on your plate as well.

Well, I suppose I can just

relay my own experience and indeed, I suppose, what I've heard from others over the years.

Now, I've been very fortunate and I have a very, very sympathetic employer.

But even on saying that, my income was significantly reduced, I remember, in terms of potential earning income over the years.

And I remember at the time when I was diagnosed, we were doing a major job on the house.

It was gutted.

And...

Would that make a meaningful difference for families?

So your thoughts, John, on hospital car parking charges? We have it at UHL and it's across the country.

It is across the country.

I thought my thoughts initially are I'm not, I suppose, opposed to parking charges per se.

However, I am opposed to, I suppose, profiteering from it and a nominal fee out of no problem paying as a patient.

just in terms of provision for the upkeep and maintenance of car parks, that type of thing.

But there are significant profits being made around the country by the HSE and those profits are increasing at a magnitude and a rate of knots that's quite staggering in UHL alone.

Between 2021 and 2025, the amount spent is up 222%.

isn't prevalent around the country? No, not at all.

It's a quality of life issue regardless of what your relationship status is.

Yeah.

Well, no, relationship for, for a lot of people, myself included, is very important.

Um, and it, uh, it did irreparable damage, um, you know, to, to those in my life at the time, and it, it's, it's something that you just can't...

You, you can actually prepare for it.

I think that's the point.

You can prepare for what the, that part of the journey you're about to embark on in relation to things that people don't see, um, you know, in relation to prostate cancer, whether it's erectile dysfunction, um, whether it's, uh, incontinence.

Is it, is there a need for a kind of a, um, specialist clin-clinician in this situation to kind of deal with that side of the house?

I know you've experienced different sides to this as well, but looking back, what improvements do you think could be made?

I guess we have two systems, Andrea, thanks for the opportunity, that don't talk to each other for the most part in public and private.

The issue that I had several years ago, was I went public and private.

I absolutely had to because I ended up having to get treatment abroad that I could only fund it through my health insurance.

And What I found was two systems that basically they simply didn't talk to each other in terms of the scans, for example, that I had in a public hospital down to something as simple as a viewer in a private hospital.

They couldn't read it and vice versa.

So they were obstacles that I had to overcome at a point in time when I really shouldn't have been doing so.

How are you keeping, Johnny? You're doing well at the moment, are you?