Privatized P3s need $2.4 BILLION MORE from taxpayers

Privatized P3 (public private partnership) hospitals in Britain are proving so expensive that seven of them will get £1.5 billion ($2.4 billion) in emergency funding from the government to help them avoid cutting patient services, the Guardian reports.

The hospitals will be able to access the £1.5 billion over the next 25 years, until their P3 contracts end. Andrew Lansley, the British health secretary, said he had been forced to use taxpayers' money because certain hospitals could no longer afford their P3 deals.

The Conservative health secretary blames the previous Labour government for bungling the P3 deals, although critics of P3s had long claimed that the deals were far too expensive.

"The problems facing some parts of the NHS left to us by Labour now have to be sorted out. Tough solutions may be needed for these problems, but we will not let the sick pay for Labour's debt crisis," the Conservative health secretary claimed.

The Guardian notes that without the fund, the hospital services would be put "at severe risk" because of the P3 deals

The health secretary acted after 22 hospitals told him their P3 debts were endangering their financial or clinical future.

Ontario continues to develop new hospitals through P3 projects, with no public comment about the P3 failures elsewhere.

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