A Melbourne hotel has purportedly cancelled a family's trip because their son has epilepsy.
Max Collins, aged 11, has a severe form of the condition, suffering 40-50 myoclonic seizures a day. His father Mark decided to turn a trip to Melbourne to see a specialist into the family's first holiday.
"I just wanted to make it an experience for him," Mr Collins told 7NEWS.
Source: 7NEWS
Earlier this year, Max also started experiencing the more commonly-known full clonic seizures, which affect his entire body.
Mr Collins booked a room at HFN Waterside Melbourne Apartments, explaining Max's condition to the hotel. "I just told them a bit about Max, what we were doing and why we were heading over," he said.
The next morning, HFN emailed Mark to inform him the booking had been cancelled. "For the safety of the guest and due to the risk we cannot bear, we are sorry to inform you that we cannot accommodate you," the email read.
The hotel blamed the message on a contractor in China, calling it a "terrible mistake."
"I just don't understand, it's not like we were asking them to look after him for us," Mr Collins said. "We would be with him the whole time. It's not easy at the best of times, let alone when something like this happens."
"I'll have to call overseas to find out what's happening, but that service is not up to our standard," the hotel duty manager said."I'll tell the service company that they have to go through us to respond to anything like that."
