Sick People Booted from Hotels for Republican Convention

CLEVELAND, OH — While the Republican National Convention was in Cleveland, sick people who travel here for world-class medical treatment got kicked out of their hotel rooms.

Only some were denied a room at the inn, however. Others were just forced to pay higher rates.

Donald Trump boasted to America in his acceptance speech Thursday night that he would look out of for the little guy getting a raw deal by a rigged system that favors those with power, connections and money. Maybe his role of champion of the shafted starts after the election.

About 50,000 out-of-towners descended on Cleveland this week for the four-day convention at Quicken Loans Arena, including delegates, political operatives, news media and a small army of police officers from other states. Hotel rooms throughout the city and suburbs — at least 16,000 of them — were needed for these visitors.

Sharon Willits, of Wheeling, West Virginia, told Cleveland.com she came here for a four-week treatment program at the Cleveland Clinic. She booked a room at the Comfort Inn Downtown. About two and a half weeks into her stay, the hotel told her to pack up and get out to make way for the Republicans.

Willits eventually found lodging in a private home

"I don't think it was the right thing for the hotel to do," Willits said. "And to be honest, I blame the Republican Party, too. Do they think they are the only ones in the world?"

A transplant patient bunking at an extended-stay hotel near the airport was told she could stay despite the convention, reports Cleveland.com, but her rate would be increased.

Hotels were booked up as far away as Sandusky, where the California delegation stayed (and about a dozen people contracted norovirus). Fifteen hotels in the city dedicated huge blocs of rooms for the convention, including the Intercontinental Hotel at the Cleveland Clinic, where the Kentucky delegates were booked. The InterContinental Suites Hotel and the Holiday Inn Cleveland Clinic also took in convention goers.

more via Cleveland.com