The Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre in Alberta, Canada, like any hospital, relies on volunteers and donations to make life better for patients. And the Friends of the Red Deer Regional Hospital is a non-profit group that works to raise money for that very cause.

Which is why it’s more than a little strange that the Friends group is holding a fundraising event featuring a “psychic medium”:

Colette Baron-Reid is an internationally acclaimed intuition expert and host of the TV show Messages From Spirit. She’s also a bestselling inspirational author published in 27 languages, keynote speaker, recording artist, and entrepreneur.

For about $100, you can listen to Baron-Reid cold-read her way through the emotions of people desperate to connect with their deceased relatives, even though that’s a complete impossibility. This event would be bad enough on its own, but it’s just an awful way to raise money for a hospital. No group should be promoting pseudoscience in an effort to support real science.

Doctors are in the business of helping patients through evidence-based medicine.

Self-proclaimed “psychics” are in the business of helping themselves by toying with the emotions of people whose loved ones are no longer with us.

To paraphrase reader John, who sent this along, what’s next? Will Jenny McCarthy give a speech to raise money for a new pediatrics ward?



