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Nurses, cleaners and kitchen staff at Brookfield General Hospital will no longer have to walk home in the dark or pay for expensive taxis after late shifts. From next Monday, a new night bus will run between the hospital and the city centre every thirty minutes from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m.
Until now, the last bus from the hospital left at 9.40 p.m. More than 600 of the hospital's 2,500 employees regularly finish work after that time. Many of them told managers in a survey last spring that they felt unsafe waiting at quiet bus stops, and some said they had left their jobs because the journey home was so difficult.
The new route, called N7, will stop at the main train station, the university and three large housing areas on the way. Hospital staff will be able to travel free by showing their work card. Other passengers will pay the normal fare of £2.
The service is being paid for jointly by the hospital and the city's transport company for a trial period of one year. If enough people use it, the transport company has promised to keep it running permanently. "We need at least 150 passengers a night to make it work," said a spokesperson. "We are confident we will get them."
Staff have welcomed the news. Grace Okafor, a nurse who has worked night shifts for eleven years, said she usually spent around £60 a week on taxis. "That's almost a day's pay," she said. "Some of my younger colleagues simply couldn't afford it, so they walked for forty minutes. Now they can sit on a warm bus instead."
The hospital also hopes the bus will help it to find new workers. Like many hospitals in the country, it has several hundred empty jobs, and managers believe that better transport could make night work more attractive.