Dear Mayor Gerretsen and Deputy Mayor Hector,
We appreciate that you both took the time to attend Keep Our Hospitals Public events and took the time to look at the written information that we provided to Council. We feel it is important to correct comments based on the article from the University of Toronto professors.
The study starts with a simple problem: the province pays 16% more for P3 hospitals that public hospitals: how can it justify this use of tax payer dollars. The answer is that it would be justified if the risk transfer to private sector was of great value than the 16%. You both were correct in pointing out this possible solution but it is not their conclusion as you stated.
The article then looks at whether the risk transfer justifies the extra cost and finds that due to lack of information provided by Infrastructure Ontario “it is not possible to assess key issues such as the cost of raising private finance, or the cost of transferring specific risks”. The article continues to be generally supportive of the short term design, build, finance models, like the KGH project, and critical of the long term finance and maintenance agreements, like the Providence Care project.
What their finding leaves us with is a simple statement that P3 hospitals cost 16% more.
We look forward to continuing the discussion on rebuilding health infrastructure and the municipal role in that process.
Yours sincerely, Ross Sutherland.
