Fully furnished

There is an exquisite feeling of self-loathing that comes with purchasing a ticket in the hospital lottery. It’s the sense of being duped, combined with the humiliation of having your baser instincts exposed. On the other hand, there’s a sense of belonging.

The character of this fundraiser is aspirational, but perhaps not in a way we should aspire to. Rather than drawing upon empathy and cooperation to inspire contributions to the strengthening of our health-care system, the ads harness good old-fashioned materialistic envy. While a regular lottery ticket provides a nicotine hit of escapism, this is a more extravagant invitation to oblivion. Instead of allowing the participant to indulge in wild imaginings of what it would be like to have a stack of money, the hospital lottery offers the opportunity to obliterate your mediocre life and replace it with a shinier, splashier one, which comes as a pre-packaged product – a turn-key existence of affluence and leisure.

One of the prizes is a 2,400-square-foot oceanfront home, with three bedrooms and three bathrooms, which is described as a “cottage.” The grand prize is a more spacious dwelling, offering 5,600 square feet of living area, with five bedrooms and four bathrooms. It has a “dual island kitchen” (which is clearly superior to the single-island type), and also a “butler’s pantry” (though the house servants are not included). And there’s an extra-large garage with 17-foot ceilings – maybe so you can pile up your belongings with a forklift.

Both houses come fully furnished, landscaped, and even professionally decorated (presumably with professional-grade bric-à-brac that is better than the random crap occupying the shelves and window sills in my house). So there is nothing for you to do! Just drop off all your old stuff at Value Village, then move in and enjoy the cozy ambiance of a hotel lobby.

There is also a car on offer – actually, your choice of a Land Rover SUV or an Audi convertible. And a huge motorboat, which comes with a huge pickup truck to tow it. “What better way to spend your weekends!” reads the online promotional blurb. “When you’re not off-roading through the dirt and mud in your Toyota Tundra, or testing its worth as a heavy metal workhorse, you’ll be hitching it up to your Malibu VLX Wakesetter for a day of skiing, surfing, and wakeboarding.”

Who are these fun-loving folks who wish to create such large ruts and waves? The tickets are $100 a pop, so one would assume the target market comprises people who don’t have to worry too much about gas money for their high-horsepower recreational pursuits. (Maybe this is the demographic Justin Trudeau is referring to in his breathless exhortations on Canada’s middle class.)

**COVID-19 mortality by neighbourhood income, Jan. 1-Aug. 31, 2020 (Public Health Agency of Canada)**

There are also some more modest trinkets, and some nice vacation packages, and various cash prizes. Of course, none of these goodies are donated; they are purchased at great expense. It all adds up to a little more than $3.8 million. But the lottery is expected to net about $4 million, so it’s hard to argue with the economics.

This is the nature of fundraising; it costs money to extract donations from people. We want something in return. Even people who have gobs of money love the idea of the upgrade, the discount, the “free gift.” It’s human nature. We like treats.

So we shouldn’t be surprised by the popularity and effectiveness of this game in which a group of people buy presents for themselves, and then throw in a donation to a worthy cause. But what’s kind of odd about the hospital lottery is the way it celebrates economic inequality, which is a major contributor to negative health outcomes. The connection is well established, and it has been demonstrated again during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Should we forfeit this revenue stream just because the symbolism is a bit off? Of course not. I don’t have any better ideas for raking in sufficient dough to make the necessary investments in health care – other than paying for this basic public service through fair taxation instead of treating it as a Dickensian charitable enterprise. But that’s no fun.

Who knows where this is headed? As time goes on, it may become harder to wring voluntary donations from certain segments of our society, so we will have to sweeten the pot. I foresee a time when we have a hospital lottery that gives you the opportunity to win an actual hospital. Fully furnished, of course. An MRI machine of one’s own. In a jurisdiction where health-care resources are scarce, it might be the perfect gift-to-yourself. You know, for the person who has everything. DL