The Victoria Hospital Foundation has reached its fundraising goal of $2.2 million dollars in just six months with a final donation of $800,000 from Dr. Lalita Molhotra, who has delivered more than 10,000 babies over her 42 years in Prince Albert.
“That is my pleasure that we can provide the same best care in all the world to all newborns,” Molhotra said at a special presentation Thursday morning.
The NICU for the North fundraising campaign began in September with a multi-year goal of raising $2.2 million to expand and upgrade the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
Victoria Hospital Foundation CEO Sherry Buckler said reaching their goal within six months is “unprecedented and monumental.”
“I think what that speaks to is the tenacity and the might of such a small community in the north that has always pulled together when they needed to make something happen,” Buckler told CTV News.
Molhotra and her late husband Dr. Tilak Malhotra moved to Prince Albert in 1975, where Tilak was the community’s only pediatrician for 20 years. Both Lalita and Tilak helped to deliver and care for mothers and newborns in Prince Albert and the north.
“[My husband] encouraged me always to do everything for the community,” Molhotra said. “And [making this donation] I thought is a very big thing which he would have liked to have done.”
The current NICU is 375 square feet and can only care for four babies at a time. The money will go toward expanding the space to 4,000 square feet and buying updated equipment.
