Forbes reports:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday called for an investigation into a Georgia ICE detention center where a whistleblower complaint from one of the facility’s nurses detailed health care abuses, including questionable hysterectomies and a refusal to test for and report coronavirus cases.
Several legal advocacy groups filed the 27-page whistleblower complaint with the DHS’s Office of the Inspector General, the agency’s internal watchdog, on Monday, on behalf of nurse Dawn Wooten, citing testimony from Wooten as well as several detainees.
Wooten, who worked full-time at the Irwin Detention Center in Georgia until July, said the facility would send many detainees to see a particular gynecologist outside the facility who she described as the “uterus collector.”
NBC News reports:
The doctor, who three lawyers identified as Dr. Mahendra Amin, practicing in Douglas, Georgia, has continued to see women from the Irwin County Detention Center for the past several years despite complaints from his patients.
Amin was the subject of a Justice Department investigation in 2015 for making false claims to Medicaid and Medicare. As a result, he and other doctors involved paid $525,000 in a civil settlement, according to the Justice Department.
If true, the appalling conditions described at an ICE detention facility — including allegations of mass hysterectomies performed on immigrant women — are a staggering abuse of human rights. @DHSOIG must immediately investigate these allegations. https://t.co/Rkr3yLt54r
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) September 15, 2020
Responding to allegations that hysterectomies are being performed without consent on immigrants detained at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia, ICE says that only two such procedures have been done on women there since 2018, contrary to whistleblower complaints. pic.twitter.com/yVwlqYn7VC
— Caitlin Dickerson (@itscaitlinhd) September 15, 2020
BREAKING: Lawyers allege abuse of migrant women by gynecologist for Georgia ICE detention center. Our new reporting following whistleblower allegation of unnecessary procedures, including hysterectomies. With @JuliaEAinsley and @daniellalsilva. https://t.co/EFGRRq47yE
— Jacob Soboroff (@jacobsoboroff) September 15, 2020
Reports that an @ICEgov detention center is performing mass hysterectomies on immigrants are horrifying. Congress must hold hearings now to investigate these possible human rights violations & the long line of medical abuse & neglect at these facilities. https://t.co/tH2edqfh9t
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) September 15, 2020
There are multiple lawyers representing multiple women who say they had hysterectomies without consent.https://t.co/MT2MDCMsX4
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 15, 2020