However, the car parks at Ninewells are operated by a private company, Vinci Park, and so are not affected by today’s announcement by Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon.

“In this 60th anniversary year of NHS Scotland, I am determined the founding principles of our health service remain intact,” she said.

“Chief among these is that the NHS should be free at the point of delivery, and it is my firm belief this should apply whether one comes to hospital as a patient, visitor or member of staff.

“It’s simply not fair to expect patients or visitors to have to pay when they come to hospital, when they may be suffering personal anxiety, stress or grief.

“Put bluntly, a car parking charge is often the last thing people need.

“The abolition of charges will also help to reduce the financial burden on patients, staff and visitors to hospitals at a time when pressure on family budgets is increasing — another example of the Scottish Government doing what it can to help in tough economic times.

“So it gives me great pleasure today to put an end to such charges in all publicly-operated hospital car parks.”

Presumably the same pressures apply to patients in Dundee, but it appears they will have to put up with the pain in their pockets and the strain on their emotions for another 20 years or so.

Like patients at Edinburgh and Glasgow Royal Infirmaries, they have to keep paying as the cost of ending the long-term contracts with the private firms running their car parks would be “prohibitive.”

The only consolation Ms Sturgeon could offer was a vague request for charges to kept in check.

“I also expect those NHS boards with car parks operated under PFI contracts to work as hard as they can to minimise this inconvenience to visitors by limiting or reducing their charges,” she said.

Giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s public petitions committee earlier this year, NHS Tayside’s chief operating officer Gerry Marr revealed it would cost the health authority £10 million to buy its way out of the contract with car park operator Vinci Park, which has around 20 years still to run.

The decision to go down the PFI route was taken by a previous management set-up at the health board, which agreed a private company should build the multi-storey and run all the car parks at Ninewells, to free up cash for patient care.

Vinci Park has always refused to reveal how much it makes from the Ninewells site, but a crude calculation using publicly available statistics suggested a conservative figure of £2.3m each year.