Inquiry wanted: Allegations say detainee hysterectomies performed without consent.
Lawmakers press inquiry regarding hysterectomies
Members of Congress are pressing the administration with further inquiries after the Department of Homeland Security announced this week it is looking into a whistleblower complaint that claimed federal immigration detainees underwent unnecessary gynecological surgeries – including full hysterectomies – without their consent.
Immigration attorneys said they were interviewing detainees to determine how widespread the problem might be, with some clients describing experiences where parts of their fallopian tubes and their ovaries had been removed while they were in custody.
More than 170 Democratic members of Congress dispatched a letter Tuesday to Homeland Security’s Inspector General, urging the office to open “an immediate investigation.”
The allegations stem from a 27-page complaint compiled by Project South, an Atlanta-based advocacy group, as well as Georgia Detention Watch, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights and South Georgia Immigrant Support Network. The complaint lists Dawn Wooten, a former nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center, as a whistleblower who details medical neglect such as conducting procedures without consent and refusal to test detainees for COVID-19. The detention center is run by private prison company Lasalle Corconsent, rections and overseen by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Officials at Lasalle Corrections, which runs the center, did not return several requests for comments.
The complaint doesn’t name the doctor who allegedly performed the procedures, but attorneys representing the women have identified him as Dr. Mahendra Amin, of Douglas, Georgia.
According to ICE data, two individuals at the Irwin County facility have been referred to medical professionals for hysterectomies since 2018. But in a statement, Dr. Ada Rivera, medical director of the ICE Health Service Corps., said she “vehemently disputes the implication that detainees are used for experimental medical procedures” and vowed a full investigation.
“Detainees are afforded informed and a medical procedure like a hysterectomy would never be performed against a detainee’s will,” the statement said.
The whistleblower complaint alleges that detainees were routinely sent outside the detention center to a gynecologist who performed full hysterectomies, partial ones and other procedures without their full understanding or consent. In one case, Wooten said a young woman was supposed to have her left ovary removed because of a cyst, but the doctor remover her right ovary instead. The doctor still had to remove the left ovary, Wooten said, leaving the detainee infertile.
“She still wanted children – so she has to go back home now and tell her husband that she can’t bear kids,” Wooten said in the complaint.