$1.7M per patient - the Chicago way
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Taxpayers spent nearly $66 million fashioning McCormick Place into an emergency coronavirus hospital with 2,750 beds this past spring amid fears that COVID-19 patients would overwhelm hospitals in the Chicago area.
Those fears turned out to be unfounded. Just 38 patients were transferred to the sprawling convention center — meaning taxpayers’ cost for the makeshift hospital turned out to be more than $1.7 million per patient, on average.
But top aides to Mayor Lori Lightfoot say her decision to initiate the project with the federal government and the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority was an important “insurance policy” at a time of “immense emergency.”
“It’s something I’m incredibly proud of,” says Samir Mayekar, Lightfoot’s deputy mayor for economic and neighborhood development who says the money was “not spent in vain.”
More at the link on how contracts were awarded.
tl;dr version: You can guess...
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I dont have a problem on the surface with the idea and the setting up of the temporary hospital. There are lots of things we do to plan for a "worse case" situation.
However, if the contacts for the temporary hospital were not done correctly, well then.............................. that should be followed up.
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