Top US hospital hit with scathing ad campaign over 'extreme woke' agenda: 'Politics over patients'
FIRST ON FOX: Consumers' Research, a leading nonprofit dedicated to consumer information, is launching an advertising campaign against one of the top healthcare systems in the United States, accusing it of prioritizing "woke" politics over patient care.
Consumers' Research is targeting Henry Ford Health in Detroit, Michigan, with a campaign called "Ford Health Exposed" that includes a website where the group says it is spotlighting "how Henry Ford is putting politics over patients by weaving discriminatory practices into everything it does, administering harmful transgender treatments on kids, and prioritizing a radical climate agenda."
The website points out that the Henry Ford Health website is littered with examples of "woke" ideology being promoted, including DEI, which the hospital has said is "woven into the fabric of everything we do."
"Diversity always will be the foundation on which Henry Ford Health stands," the organization's website states.
The website also openly promotes its use of "unconscious bias training" as well as Employee Resource Groups to promote its "diversity" agenda that it says will "enhance the quality of care and comfort for each person that we serve."
The healthcare system also promotes what it describes on its website as "supplier diversity," where it prioritizes working with businesses that are at least 51% owned by LGBTQ+ persons or certain minority categories.
"Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are simply not enough," Kimberlydawn Wisdom, senior vice president of community health and equity and chief wellness and diversity officer at Henry Ford Health, said in a 2021 newsletter posted on the provider's website.
"Diversity, equity, and inclusion alone can only mitigate the damage of the past. To prevent the mistakes of the past from burdening our communities in the future, our ultimate destination must be justice."
Dr. Maureen Connolly, a pediatrician and LGBTQ+ specialist with HFH, wrote an article promoting transgender treatment on kids, which stated, "Gender-affirming medical therapy and supported social transition in childhood have been shown to correlate with improved psychological functioning for gender-variant children and adolescents."
Connolly also promoted "gender exploration" in another article posted on the HFH website that says, "If your daughter says she feels like a boy inside, let her cut her hair, call her by a different name and switch up her wardrobe."
In addition to the agenda promoted on the website, Henry Ford Health is facing accusations of providing gender treatment to children. The hospital has engaged in sex change treatment, surgeries and puberty blocker treatment in recent years, according to a database compiled by Stop The Harm.
Fox News Digital reached out to Henry Ford Health for comment, but the hospital did not respond to the media inquiry. However, the hospital did delete several DEI sections from its website over the last 24 hours that were archived by Fox News Digital.
The ad campaign charges that HFH is "pushing irreversible sex changes on kids."
In 2023, the Ruth Ellis Center nominated HFH for the Ludwig Community Benefit Award for "improving the well-being of their community by delivering integrated healthcare and social services to LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning) youth in Detroit."
"In 2022, Henry Ford providers at Ruth Ellis facilities cared for more than 700 LGBTQ+ patients, including 429 transgender young adults, over the course of more than 6,800 medical visits," a press release touting the partnership between the two entities stated. "The health and wellness centers have been a source of primary care, gender affirming care, comprehensive sexual health services including HIV prevention and treatment, and behavioral health services for dozens of adolescents and young adults."
HFH has also been involved in promoting a liberal climate agenda that included spending millions of dollars last year, according to its own website, to create and promote the Central Energy Hub as part of a push for net zero emissions.
HFH also partnered with an energy company in 2021, according to a press release on the website.
"Sustainability is an integral part of building strong, healthy communities," Bob Riney, Henry Ford Health System's president of healthcare operations and chief operations officer, said in the release.
"At Henry Ford, health equity is at the foundation of everything we do. It's an unfortunate fact that low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately impacted by poor environmental conditions, which are exacerbated by climate change. By investing in clean, renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure, we aim to address health disparities and the growing impacts of climate change regionwide, especially in our historically marginalized communities."
The Consumers' Research campaign will also include mobile billboards outside of hospital locations in Detroit and Macomb, a billboard near the state capitol in Lansing, and chalk stencils around the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
"Henry Ford Health is prioritizing politics over patients," Will Hild, Consumers' Research executive director, told Fox News Digital. "Driven by gender ideology, Henry Ford has continued performing deeply harmful and irreversible sex-change treatments on children and must be stopped,"
"The hospital's deliberate mutilation of confused children's bodies is being done in direct defiance of President Trump's orders to eliminate the vile practice for good. Henry Ford Health has also committed to embedding DEI into every facet of its operation, elevating a radical ideological agenda above its fundamental duty to provide excellent scientific-based care," Hild continued. "Considering how many resources Henry Ford has squandered on needless, extreme woke programs, the hospital has rendered itself almost indistinguishable from an activist group, not only spewing radical left-wing talking points but actively imposing these ideologies onto patients and staff. Rather than change course, Henry Ford Health has chosen to wear its transgressions with pride, a chilling testament to how far it has strayed from its original purpose. Consumers' Research will continue to put these hospitals on blast for putting a woke agenda over patient care."
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