TOURISM/TRAVEL
Patients Have Virtues: An Irvine medical center has done its part to help heal the local hotel industry.
Emphysema patients who come to the Wakabayashi Institute in Irvine for lung surgery often stay with their families at nearby hotels, which offer discounts of as much as 40% to families that stay several weeks. About 20 to 25 new patients arrive for surgery every month at the institute.
The patients have boosted occupancies at some of the nearby hotels as much as 10%.
“Our patients try to stay with friends and family but many will stay for weeks at a time in our surrounding hotels,” said Robert Shaw, chief executive officer of Irvine Medical Center, site of the Wakabayashi Institute.
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