More detained migrant women say they didn’t approve surgery
HOUSTON — Sitting across from her lawyer at an immigration detention center in rural Georgia, Mileidy Cardentey Fernandez unbuttoned her jail jumpsuit to show the scars on her abdomen. There were three small, circular marks.
The 39-year-old Cuban woman was told only that she would undergo an operation to treat her ovarian cysts, but a month later, she’s still not sure what procedure she got. After Cardentey repeatedly requested her medical records to find out, the Irwin County Detention Center gave her more than 100 pages detailing a diagnosis of cysts but nothing from the day of the surgery.
“The only thing they told me was: ‘You’re going to go to sleep and when you wake up, we will have finished,’ ” Cardentey said this month in a phone interview.
Cardentey kept her hospital bracelet with the date, Aug. 14, and part of the doctor’s name, Dr. Mahendra Amin, a gynecologist linked to allegations of unwanted hysterectomies and other procedures done on detained immigrant women that jeopardize their ability to have children.
An Associated Press review of medical records for four women and interviews with lawyers revealed growing allegations that Amin performed surgeries and other procedures on detained immigrants that they never sought or didn’t fully understand. Although some procedures could be justified based on problems documented in the records, the women’s lack of consent or knowledge raises serious legal and ethical issues, lawyers and medical experts said.
Amin has performed surgery or other gynecological treatment on at least eight women detained at Irwin County Detention Center since 2017, including one hysterectomy, said Andrew Free, an immigration and civil rights lawyer working with other attorneys to investigate medical treatment at the jail. Doctors are helping the lawyers examine new records and more women are coming forward to report their treatment by Amin, Free said.
The AP’s review did not find evidence of mass hysterectomies as alleged in a widely shared complaint filed by a nurse at the detention center. Dawn Wooten alleged that many detained women were taken to an unnamed gynecologist whom she labeled the “uterus collector” because of how many hysterectomies he performed.
A lawyer who helped file Wooten’s complaint said she never spoke to any women who had hysterectomies. Priyanka Bhatt, staff attorney at the advocacy group Project South, told The Washington Post that she included the hysterectomy allegations because she wanted to trigger an investigation to determine if they were true.
“I have a responsibility to listen to the women I’ve spoken with,” Bhatt told the AP last week.
She said one woman alleged that she was repeatedly pressured to have a hysterectomy and that authorities said they would not pay for her to get a second opinion.
Amin told The Intercept, which first reported Wooten’s complaint, that he has only performed one or two hysterectomies in the past three years.
His attorney, Scott Grubman, said in a statement: “We look forward to all of the facts coming out, and are confident that once they do, Dr. Amin will be cleared of any wrongdoing.”
Since 2018, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it found records of two referrals for hysterectomies at the jail, which is in Ocilla, Georgia, about 150 miles from Atlanta.
In a statement Friday, ICE Acting Director Tony Pham said: “If there is any truth to these allegations, it is my commitment to make the corrections necessary to ensure we continue to prioritize the health, welfare and safety of ICE detainees.”
LaSalle Corrections, which operates the jail, said it “strongly refutes these allegations and any implications of misconduct.”
Women housed at Irwin County Detention Center who needed a gynecologist were typically taken to Amin, according to medical records provided to the AP by Free and lawyer Alexis Ruiz, who represents
Cardentey.
The AP reviewed records for a woman who was given a hysterectomy. She reported irregular bleeding and was taken to Amin for a D&C, a surgical procedure formally known as dilation and curettage that removes tissue from the uterus and can be used as a treatment for excessive bleeding.
A lab study of the tissue found signs of early cancer, called carcinoma. Amin’s notes indicate the woman agreed 11 days later to the hysterectomy. Free, who spoke to the woman, said she felt pressured by Amin and “didn’t have the opportunity to say no” or speak to her family before the procedure.
Doctors told the AP that a hysterectomy could have been appropriate due to the carcinoma, though there may have been less intrusive options.
Lawyers for both women asked that their names be withheld for fear of retaliation by immigration authorities.