Ottawa looks to off-load costly, seldom-used mobile hospitals bought for the pandemic [Video]

The federal government expects to spend about $7 million this fiscal year to store and maintain four custom-made, portable hospitals that cost taxpayers more than $200 million to buy — facilities meant to bolster overwhelmed hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic that were barely used.

Early on in the pandemic, as the federal government moved at breakneck speed to respond to a global health crisis, it issued rush orders for these Mobile Health Units.

They are deployable field hospitals designed to deal with acute respiratory illness cases and were meant to backstop overflowing hospitals.

But the facilities are now packed away in controlled storage spaces in Brockville and Chesterville, Ont., and the federal government is spending millions of dollars every year to maintain them there.

Documents obtained through the Access to Information Act reveal that off-loading the massive, technically complex structures — which were deployed during the pandemic but saw only a handful of patients — has …