A unique pension arrangement at the Ottawa Hospital is drawing criticism on the day such details were made public.

A new provincial law made hospitals subject to freedom-of-information requests on executive contracts starting Jan. 1, so most hospitals decided to just make them public Tuesday.

Ottawa Hospital CEO Dr. Jack Kitts' $517,700 salary was already available, along with all their top executives, but what's new is their pension arrangements.

Almost all those executives don't pay into their pensions at all, with the hospital covering all those costs.

For Dr. Kitts, that means an extra $47,000 a year into his pension, outside of his salary, that he doesn't contribute to.

"This was a standard way of remunerating or dealing with pensions for senior executives, so it's just part of the compensation package," said Ottawa Hospital board chair Carole Workman.

In fact, CTV Ottawa couldn't find any other hospital in Ottawa with this pension arrangement.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation said the deal should be scrapped.

"Every dollar that is going into these pensions is a dollar that isn't toward beds, or even more salaries for more doctors or more nurses," said Derek Fildebrandt.

People we spoke with said they agreed.

"I don't understand why they wouldn't have to contribute to their own pension," said one.

"I have to pay huge amounts of money to have a decent retirement fund," another said. "I don't think it's appropriate."

Dr. Kitts is getting more than the hospital's pension contribution; because he joined the plan late he's receiving a supplementary top-up.

It means he'll get an extra $70,000 cash beyond that pension and his salary.

"By leaving his lucrative practice, it also changed how he would be planning for his pension over time," Workman said. "This was a way of dealing with the issues of a latecomer to the workforce."

"It's merely a cheque written from our children and from future health care users to pay out that pension," said Fildebrandt. "It doesn't have a single dollar sitting in it right now, it doesn't have a single dollar invested in it."

Beside the pensions, Dr. Kitts also gets a $12,000 vehicle allowance per year.

The much smaller CHEO hospital executives get $6,000 for vehicles every year, while CEO Alex Munter gets none on top of a $330,000 salary.

There were few new specific details released by the Queensway Carleton and Montfort hospitals.

With a report from CTV Ottawa's John Hua