Converting a Chicago convention center into an emergency coronavirus hospital cost taxpayers on average more than $1.7 million per patient, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.
Taxpayers spent about $66 million making the emergency 2,750-bed coronavirus hospital in the McCormick Place Convention Center. The hospital was built this spring amid fears of a COVID-19 surge in the city.
However, just 38 patients were transferred and treated at the emergency COVID-19 hospital, meaning the cost for the hospital was more than $1.7 million per patient.
Top aides to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot told the Sun-Times that the hospital project was an important insurance policy for the city.
"It's something I’m incredibly proud of," Samir Mayekar, Ms. Lightfoot's deputy mayor for economic and neighborhood development, told the Sun-Times.
He added that the money was "not spent in vain," and the equipment from the makeshift hospital can be redeployed.