City of Tallinn and Estonian state to join forces on planned hospital funding

The City of Tallinn and two of the ministries are to finalize a co-financing plan within the next month for the building of a new €850 million hospital complex.
The development, which had stalled earlier, will merge city and state hospitals in the capital into a unified healthcare network.
Tallinn Mayor Jevgeni Ossinovski (SDE) said: "It is clear that the hospital merger must also include a clear vision on real estate."
"We agreed that over the next month, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Social Affairs, and the city will jointly create a detailed plan specifying when and how the city and state will fund future investments," the mayor went on.
"A financing scheme or plan for the new medical campus can now be prepared. It is no secret that the state's financial capacity is limited in the near term, due to the state budget situation. However, we are talking about investments that will primarily materialize towards the end of this decade," he added.
"My view is that we need to proceed without delay, to reach concrete decisions in the coming months," Ossinovski stressed.
"The Minister of Health will hopefully secure the government coalition's approval for this soon, while we simultaneously determine the additional steps needed to finalize the financial plan," the mayor continued.
Prime Minister Kristen Michal (Reform) has expressed his support for a collaboration between the capital and the Ministry of Social Affairs, on merging Tallinn's hospitals with the state-run North Estonia Medical Center (PERH), in the Mustamäe district.
Minister of Health Riina Sikkut (SDE) is to present the merger plan to the government, according to Ossinovski, while Tallinn has already begun preparing a financial framework independently, he added.
The latest round of discussion on the merger, after earlier plans were shelved at the design stage, has been ongoing since last August and involves the existing.
These negotiations include the East Tallinn Central Hospital (ITKH), the West Tallinn Central Hospital (LTKH), and Tallinn Children's Hospital (Tallinna Lastehaigla), in addition to PERH.
These would all be merged, under the plan.
Deputy Mayor Karl Sander Kase (Isamaa) noted that if the state does not provide positive signals about funding, Tallinn will move forward independently with the merger.
The integration plan envisions a unified Tallinn Hospital at two sites: One in Mustamäe, where the current PERH campus is located, and another in Lasnamäe, in other words not at either the LTKH site on Paldski mnt, or the ITKH location near Liivalaia in the city center.
The Lasnamäe campus would therefore be built from scratch, at an estimated cost of €850 million.
During a meeting with the prime minister and minister of health, agreement was reached for representatives from the City of Tallinn and state ministries to develop a funding plan for the development.
The plan, as noted, is expected within a month and will specify the timeline and cost-sharing responsibilities between the city and the state, according to Mayor Ossinovski.
From the outset, Tallinn has insisted that the state must commit to financing the construction of the new medical campus.
The development itself should be finished at the end of the 2020s, as things stand.
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Editor: Marko Tooming, Andrew Whyte