The Calgary Health Trust is raising money for what could be a medical first in North America. It's a hybrid operating room for trauma patients.
The head of Trauma Services in Calgary, Dr. Andy Kirkpatrick says "We'll have a team of special x- ray doctors that can control bleeding, at the same time a group of surgeons can be operating outside the organ".
Currently if a trauma patient needs both surgery and angiography, doctors have to choose which treatment comes first because the services are located in different parts of the hospital.
A hybrid surgical suite allows both types of treatment to be offered at the same time, therefore saving lives.
Dr. Kirkpatrick says making a choice between two treatments is difficult and sometimes, doctors make the wrong choice. He says "Right now we have to flip a coin and we may lose that person".
Nearly all the money raised through this year's Foothills Hospital Home Lottery will be used to build the new surgical suite.
