A coalition led by Corporate Accountability International is targeting Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital for its ties with McDonald's, according to a Tampa Bay Business Journal report.
Protesters with the group were at MacFarlane Park Elementary School, just miles from TGH, this week, calling on the hospital to end its relationship with the fast-food giant.
That relationship began in 1988, when the then-public hospital signed a contract with McDonald's. The contract runs through 2023.
Elena Cuadros, field organizer with Corporate Accountability International, sees it as a wellness issue.
"Having a McDonald's and junk food inside a healthcare institution doesn't make sense, at a time when we are seeing epidemics in diet-related disease such as Type 2 diabetes," she said, according to the report.
But John Dunn, a spokesman for the hospital, pointed to the wide range of healthy selections in the hospital's food court.
"People today are more educated than ever about the role food plays in their health. They know what constitutes good and poor choices in selecting meals. They will make their own choices about the food they want to eat," he told the Tampa Bay Business Journal.
The protestors' call for TGH to end ties with McDonald's comes amid an increase in the number of hospitals that have severed ties with the restaurant. Minneapolis-based Abbott Northwestern Hospital announced in December that McDonald's would stop selling there, and McDonald's closed at Cleveland Clinic in September.