‘Wokest hospital in America?’: Top hospital hit with blistering ad exposing ‘political agenda’

FIRST ON FOX: Consumers’ Research, a leading non-profit dedicated to consumer information, is launching a campaign targeting the Cleveland Clinic over what it says is a history of the organization prioritizing woke politics over patients. 

The campaign, dubbed “Cleveland Clinic Exposed,” asks the public whether the clinic is “the wokest hospital in America” and will involve an ad titled “Exposed,” which will run in Ohio during the Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Toronto Raptors game on Wednesday.

“Is Cleveland Clinic the wokest hospital in America?” the 30-second ad asks. “They prioritize care based on skin color. Perform child sex changes. Push transgender propaganda on vulnerable kids. Insert DEI into everything they do.

“And spend millions on climate activism. The CEO admits it: Healthcare is only a part of their mission. Cleveland Clinic. Focused on a political agenda. Not what’s best for patients.”

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The ad campaign will also be featured on ClevelandClinicExposed.com, and mobile billboards will be seen outside the Ohio state capitol building, Cleveland Clinic main campus and the Florida state capitol building. 

Additionally, a targeted digital campaign and a “woke alert” is being sent out calling on the clinic to “stop injecting politics into patient care.”

“Attention Floridians,” one of the alerts states. “Cleveland Clinic opened a sex change clinic in your backyard.”

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The ad, in part, references a letter from Cleveland Clinic’s CEO suggesting that providing healthcare services is not the sole focus of the organization. 

“Providing high-quality healthcare is only a part of our mission,” Cleveland Clinic CEO Tom Mihaljevic wrote in a post on the hospital’s website. 

“We have an obligation to uplift the many communities we call home. We must improve our neighbors’ wellbeing, quality of life and opportunities to succeed. We must operate in sustainable ways that are good for our planet. We must embrace diversity, champion human rights and lead with humility and inclusiveness.”

Cleveland Clinic has faced accusations of promoting a “woke” agenda in the past, including a complaint filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty alleging “race-based discrimination and segregation of patients.”

The Cleveland Clinic’s website also contains several posts promoting climate initiatives, including a plan for “greening” its operating rooms. 

In 2022, the Cleveland Clinic hired Jacqui Robertson as chief of diversity and inclusion, and announced in a post that has since been deleted that she will “lead efforts that will further diversity and inclusion across the health system.” 

Robertson stated in a 2023 interview, “I don’t believe that diversity and inclusion should ever be a standalone strategy. It has to be embedded in everything that we do. And so that’s our processes, that’s our metrics.”

In a June 2023 post that also appears to have been deleted from the Cleveland Clinic website, the clinic explained “How to Support a Child Who’s Questioning Their Gender Identity.”

Also in June 2023, the clinic put out a press release labeling racism as a “public health crisis.”

“Cleveland Clinic is committed to addressing structural racism and bias in our community,” the organization said in a December 2020 press release announcing a plan to “join a coalition of 37 of the largest U.S. employers, to train, hire and promote one million Black Americans into family-sustaining jobs with opportunities for advancement.”

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Despite past press releases and statements on the Cleveland Clinic’s website highlighting its agenda, a Cleveland Clinic spokesperson pushed back against the campaign.

“The advertisement contains false statements, and we are concerned there are serious inaccuracies in their claims. Our services are available for everyone, and we do not discriminate based on race, gender or any other category,” the spokesperson said.

“By its own shocking words and deeds, Cleveland Clinic has quite possibly become the wokest hospital in America,” Consumers’ Research executive director Will Hild told Fox News Digital in a statement. “The clinic’s leadership alarmingly proclaims that DEI ‘has to be embedded in everything that we do.’ Such a sentiment plagues the entire hospital system and should frighten every patient in need of its services.

“From unethical race-based care to transgender mutilation surgeries on kids to bowing at the altar of climate extremism, Cleveland Clinic seems hell-bent on satisfying every woke fixation while cost-reduction for patients is a distant afterthought. It is wrong when any company prioritizes woke objectives over its consumers, but it is especially disturbing when the perpetrator is a medical facility and consumers are patients. Cleveland Clinic must reverse course, shun woke radicalism, stop spending resources in the wrong places, and make affordable quality care its only focus.”