You may need treatment after final cost of hospital is shown

THE Sydney Opera House cost $102m, 15 times the original estimate.

When it was revealed the final bill for Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall was €866m, 11 times the original estimate, waves of schadenfreude swept across Europe.

Doctors have an even greater ability to extract money from the public purse. The cost of Vienna General Hospital rose 60-fold from a projected €72m to €4.5bn by the time the first patient was admitted. The final bill for the National Children’s Hospital may cause nervous shock. Dr John Doherty

Vienna, Austria