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For a good cause

Proceeds from this year’s Hospitals’ Home Lottery — which includes a home in Southbrook — will go to the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre trauma centre.
Local-Lottery-Home
Kelly Freeman

Proceeds from this year’s Hospitals’ Home Lottery — which includes a home in Southbrook — will go to the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre trauma centre.

“We’re always challenged in medicine to meet the overwhelming demand,” said Dr. Tim Pearce, central zone medical director, peri-operative medicine.

“This is going to be a huge benefit for the trauma program to be partially funded by the lottery, and it’s going to make a big difference to patient care within our zone,” he said during the lottery’s official launch Friday in Red Deer.

The trauma centre, the third largest in the province, deals with a large spectrum of patients, Pearce said, excluding head trauma and spine trauma cases. They manage more than 300 hip fractures and 250 ankle fractures a year, for example. The trauma centre cared for more than 3,000 patients last year.

Most of the money raised by the lottery will go towards replacing and duplicating equipment in the operating room, as well as buying new equipment, Pearce said.

The grand prize in the 2010 Hospitals’ Home Lottery is the three-bedroom house at 80 Sutherland Close, built by True-Line Contracting Ltd.

The $690,000, 2,500-square-foot dream home includes waterfalls over the fireplace and a vehicle lift in the two-car garage.

“When I came in this morning, I noticed there were two things missing from this home,” Grant Edmonds, chairman of the Red Deer Regional Health Foundation and lottery, said at the grand opening. “There was no toothbrush and there was no toothpaste. So we’ll get that looked after.”

The house isn’t the only thing up for grabs in the 12th Hospitals’ Home Lottery. The number of available prizes increased to 450 this year from 200 in years past, and for the first time the value of the prize list exceeds $1 million.

Tickets are $25 each and are available by calling 403-340-1878 or by visiting www.hospitalslottery.com. The final draw for all prizes will be on June 25.

mgauk@www.reddeeradvocate.com