An 82-year-old widow from Richmond is leading the charge to have hospital parking fees abolished at Metro Vancouver hospitals, after she paid almost $1,800 in parking fees.

Anne Graham spent weeks visiting her son Bruce at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, where he was being treated for Lymphoma.

"He looked so bad he had gone to a skeleton and you know you go down there you can't find a place to park you have to find a machine. It was just stressful in every sense of the word," said Graham.

On Halloween last year, Bruce lost his battle with the disease. Then more tragedy struck Graham’s family. Her husband, Don, was fighting bone and prostate cancer and she was back in her car heading to more hospitals and paying for more parking.  

Don spent 48 days in hospital before passing away in March. Graham says she spent a fortune on parking and says the hospital's parking policies are cruel.

"You have enough on your mind. You don't need another problem outside the hospital and I visited him every day he was in,” she said.

Graham kept meticulous track of her expenses and she estimates she spent nearly $1,800 on hospital parking in the past year. She contacted CTV News after getting no response from her local MLA.

"I wanted to stir the pot and get something started so that this could be discussed and somebody's got to make a break or change their minds so that something can be done,” she said.

Consumer reporter Lynda Steele took Graham's concerns to the person in charge of hospital parking in the Metro Vancouver-area.

Geoff Roberts, the director of parking for the Fraser, Vancouver Coastal and Providence health authorities, says the hospital's pay parking program is flexible, offering seniors rates and concessionary passes in hardship cases where a family or patient is unable to pay for parking.

“The information is available through the individual sites through administration," said Roberts.    

CTV sent all of Graham’s 2012 parking receipts to hospital officials who were upset to hear about her situation. After a review, they have decided to end her string of bad luck and reimburse her $688, half of her 2012 parking costs. Graham says she is pleased with the decision, but won’t be fully satisfied until hospital parking is free for everyone.

Tune in to CTV News at 6 on Thursday to see how officials respond to Graham’s request for free parking  and to find out where the parking revenue goes.