The total £700 million cost of the South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) in Enniskillen over the next 30 years was brought to light again this week by the BBC’s Spotlight programme which examined the extent of Northern Ireland’s Private Finance Initiative (PFI) debt.

The Department of Health and the Western Trust signed a 30 year PFI contract with a private company called Northern Ireland Health Group Ltd in 2009 and SWAH opened its doors on June 1, 2012.

The hospital’s capital value was £223.9 million and it cost £267 million to build. But, the 2016 HM Treasury PFI database shows that, by 2042, almost £700 million of tax payers’ money will have been paid to three SWAH equity holders: European Healthcare Projects (which has a 39 per cent equity share); Interserve PFI Holdings (which has a 36.5 per cent equity share) and Allied Irish Banks Plc (which has a 24.5 per cent equity share).

READ: Private firm to extend services at South West Acute Hospital

The £150 million Omagh Hospital and Primary Care Complex was also constructed by the Western Trust under PFI.

The PFI was first introduced in the UK in the early 1990s, and was later expanded under the Labour government. It allows the government to engage the private sector in the design, build, finance and operation of public infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, housing and prisons.

As the Spotlight programme put it: “PFI allows the government to build today and pay tomorrow.”

The programme claimed that Stormont borrowed £130 million for SWAH and “will pay back at least three times that (£390 million) in interest alone over the next 30 years.”

The HM Treasury database shows that in the past five years, a total of £82.6 million has been paid for the state-of-the-art South West Acute Hospital, beginning with £14 million in 2012 and rising to £17.5 million in 2016-17. For the next 24 years, annual payments will gradually rise, peaking at £32.5 million in 2041-42.

The Spotlight programme revealed that these PFI payments come from the hospital’s day-to-day budget which pays doctor salaries and treatments.

The presenter stated: “A trick of PFI is that debt repayments for PFI buildings come out of the day-to-day budget…There is a threat to services at this hospital, to stroke services in particular.”

READ: Time to end wasteful PFI - union

He added: “With the hospital only open five years, there are signs it is not thriving. Half the doctors’ posts are not filled. The cost of locums has doubled and there’s an empty ward big enough for 24 beds.”

The Department for Health told the BBC that SWAH was planned for a rural population for 60 years.

The Western Trust said that it had a difficulty recruiting doctors for many years and had no alternative to locums. It also told the Spotlight programme that the PFI cost is in line with the cost of other PFI projects and the money pays for maintenance over 30 years, as well as construction.