ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Doctors, nurses and staff members from the University of Michigan Hospital protested Friday near the site of a new, nearly billion-dollar hospital tower in Ann Arbor.
Workers said the new tower will only make the constant parking problems worse.
The group picketed outside Michigan Medicine's monumental groundbreaking ceremony, urging university officials to fix the parking problem.
"The parking situation, which has been a problem for decades, has been made worse by the continuing of building new buildings and not having sufficient parking for those buildings," nurse Katie Oppenheim said.
University leaders gathered inside a tent while the staff members protested outside. Officials announced big plans for a new state-of-the-art hospital.
"Today is a very exciting day for us," said Tony Denton, of the University of Michigan Health System.
Officials said the expansion is about helping more patients.
"We have patients who aren't able to get into our facilities today because we're so full and, given our growth, we need to add capacity to improve access to that care," Denton said.
When it comes to parking, university officials said they're working to address the issue.
"It's not going as fast as we would like, but we have plans underway that would make things more balanced in the coming months and years," Denton said.
"I think that's ridiculous," Oppenheim said. "If they have ideas of what they're going to do, they should be telling us and it shouldn't be a secret."
Both sides said they want the parking issue fixed as soon as possible.