Horizon Health Network officials say they made a mistake when they bought tickets for an event that turned out to be a fundraiser for the Progressive Conservative Party.

The New Brunswick Progressive Conservative Party has vowed to be clearer about future fundraisers for the party after the recent incident involving Horizon.

Political financing reports show the health authority gave $3,870 to the PC Party in the first half of 2011.

The money paid for a table at a Saint John event billed as "an evening with Premier David Alward,” said Horizon spokesperson Sonya Green-Haché.

Officials didn't realize the money was going to Alward's political party, she said.

“If it had have been, I guess, presented as a political fundraiser, we would not have attended,” said Green-Haché.

“It was attended as a…that it was a community event in Saint John that the premier would be at."

Horizon pays for tickets to community events from its parking fee revenues, not from operating funds devoted to health care, she added.

The New Brunswick PC Party will try to be clearer when selling tickets in the future that the money goes to the party, said executive director Jean-Paul Soucy.

Meanwhile, he will make sure Horizon gets its money back, he said.

"We'll return it," said Soucy.

"We'll return the full amount of the tickets that they bought, and we'll make sure that it will not happen again."

Horizon Health Network is the largest health care organization in Atlantic Canada, serving New Brunswick, northern Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, according to its website.

Its annual operating budget is more than $1 billion.

It has more than 100 facilities, about 13,000 employees, and 1,000 physicians.