The Cleveland Clinic will not have its annual event at Mar-a-Lago this year, despite insisting it would still hold the philanthropic night at the Florida resort last week.
The hospital folded to pressure when it announced it would end an eight-year streak and pull out of its yearly fundraiser held at Trump’s luxury venue, the clinic said on Thursday.
The decision came after 1,600 doctors, nurses, medical students and other Ohio residents signed a public letter of concern over the choice of venue.
Although the hospital said ‘there were a variety of factors’ behind the cancellation, the news comes after Trump received backlash over his comments regarding the Charlottesville protests.
The Cleveland Clinic won’t hold its annual fundraiser at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate (pictured), it said on Thursday. It comes after the clinic was pressured to cut ties following Trump’s stance on healthcare policies and his Charlottesville remarks
The Cleveland Clinic had initially resisted pressure from health professionals and others over the president’s support for repealing the Affordable Care Act and cutting federal budget dollars to medical research.
The Cleveland Clinic maintained that the event, which has been hosted at Mar-a-Lago the past eight years, was not political.
Spokeswoman Eileen Sheil said last week: ‘For us, this is more about raising money to help our clinical programs and patient care. This is not a political statement by the Cleveland Clinic by any means.’
However, the clinic went back on its original statement with the decision to pull the event after ‘careful consideration’ of various issues.
It seems the hospital is trying to distance itself from Trump’s administration, after the clinic’s CEO Toby Cosgrove was one of the business leaders on the Trump’s Manufacturing Council who did not resign before the council was disbanded on Wednesday.
A growing number of business leaders were resigning from the advisory panels, openly expressing their displeasure with Trump’s comments.
Trump had claimed that ‘both sides’ were to blame for weekend violence that left one woman dead and led to a helicopter crash that killed two state troopers in Charlottesville
Trump announced he was pulling the plug from his two business councils on Wednesday
It was primarily over his insistence that ‘both sides’ were to blame for weekend violence that left one woman dead and led to a helicopter crash that killed two state troopers in Charlottesville.
In a face-saving effort, Trump tweeted from Trump Tower in New York: ‘Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!’
The Cleveland Clinic’s Mar-a-Lago event has raised $700,000 to $1million annually to expand programs and purchase equipment for the hospital’s Florida facility.
The public letter seeking relocation of the event quickly collected more than 1,100 signatures from doctors, nurses, medical students and other Ohio residents concerned about the nation’s No. 2-ranked hospital patronizing a Trump business.
It seems the hospital is trying to distance itself from Trump’s administration, after the clinic’s CEO Toby Cosgrove (pictured) was one of the business leaders on the Trump’s Manufacturing Council who did not resign before the council was disbanded
A Columbus cardiologist who signed it says Cleveland Clinic is a thought leader in medicine and Trump’s support for repealing the Affordable Care Act goes against its core principles supporting science, research and integrity.
‘The Cleveland Clinic has always been a bastion of science, of research and of integrity,’ said Greg Lam, a member of the Physicians Action Network. ‘When the founders established the Cleveland Clinic in 1921, it was based on the principles of diversity, integrity, research and facts. And that’s completely antithetical to what Donald Trump represents.’
The letter said the hospital’s support for the Trump Organization is unacceptable ‘because it symbolically and financially supports a politician actively working to decrease access to healthcare and cut billions of dollars in research funding from the National Institutes of Health budget.’
The American Red Cross faced similar pushback in January, when demonstrators rallied outside its annual fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago as the worldwide humanitarian relief organization was offering aid to those affected by Trump’s moratorium on the U.S. refugee program.
However, the Ohio-based clinic (pictured) doubled back on its original statement with the decision to pull the event after ‘careful consideration’ of various issues