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Sitting across from her attorney at an immigrant detention center in rural Georgia, USA, 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 was only told that she would undergo an operation to treat her ovarian cysts, but a month later, she is still not sure what procedure was done. After Cardentey repeatedly requested her medical records to find out, the Irwin County Detention Center gave her more than 100 pages detailing a cyst diagnosis, but nothing on the day of surgery.
“All they told me was, ‘You’re going to sleep and when you wake up, we’ll be done,'” Cardentey said this week in a telephone interview.
Jeff Amy / AP
An Associated Press review of the medical records of four immigrant women detained at the detention center and interviews with attorneys have revealed growing allegations that a gynecologist performed surgeries that the women never sought out or did not fully understand.
Cardentey kept her hospital bracelet with the date, August 14, and part of the doctor’s name, Dr. Mahendra Amin, a gynecologist linked this week to allegations of unwanted hysterectomies and other procedures performed on detained immigrant women that endanger their ability to have children.
A Associated Press Reviewing the medical records of four women and interviews with attorneys revealed growing allegations that Amin performed surgeries and other procedures on detained immigrants that they never searched for or did not fully understand. Although some procedures could be justified based on issues documented in the records, the women’s lack of consent or knowledge raises serious legal and ethical issues, lawyers and medical experts said.
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Amin has performed surgery or other gynecological treatment on at least eight women detained at the Irwin County Detention Center since 2017, including a hysterectomy, said Andrew Free, an immigration and civil rights attorney who works with other attorneys to investigate the treatment. doctor in jail. Doctors are helping lawyers examine the new records, and more women are coming forward to report on Amin’s treatment, Free said.
The AP review found no evidence of massive 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 anonymous gynecologist whom she labeled a “uterus collector” because of the number of hysterectomies he performed.
An attorney who helped file Wooten’s complaint said he never spoke to any woman who underwent hysterectomies. Priyanka Bhatt, a staff attorney for advocacy group Project South, said The Washington Post which included the hysterectomy allegations because he wanted to launch an investigation to determine if they were true.
“I have a responsibility to listen to the women I have spoken to,” Bhatt told the AP on Friday. He said a woman claimed she was repeatedly pressured to undergo a hysterectomy and that authorities said they would not pay for her to get a second opinion.
Amin said Interception, 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 the facts and we 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 located in Ocilla, Georgia, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) 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 necessary corrections to ensure that we continue to prioritize the health, welfare and safety of detainees. of ICE “.
LaSalle Corrections, which operates the jail, said it “vigorously refutes these allegations and any implication of misconduct.”
Women housed at the Irwin County Detention Center who needed a gynecologist were generally brought to Amin, according to medical records provided to AP by Free and attorney Alexis Ruiz, who represents Cardentey.
The AP reviewed the records of a woman who had a hysterectomy. She reported irregular bleeding and was brought to Amin for a D&C, a surgical procedure formally known as D&C that removes tissue from the uterus and can be used as a treatment for excessive bleeding.
A laboratory study of the tissue found signs of early cancer, called carcinoma. Amin’s notes indicate that the woman agreed to the hysterectomy 11 days later.
Free, who spoke to the woman, said she felt pressured by Amin and “did not have a chance to say no” or speak to her family prior to the procedure.
Doctors told the AP that a hysterectomy might have been appropriate because of the carcinoma, although there may be less intrusive options.
Attorneys for both women asked that their names be withheld for fear of reprisals from immigration authorities.
In another case, Pauline Binam, a 30-year-old woman who was brought to the United States from Cameroon when she was 2 years old, saw Amin after experiencing an irregular menstrual cycle and was told to have a D&C, her lawyer said, Van Huynh.
When she woke up from surgery, Huynh said, she was told that Amin had removed one of her two fallopian tubes, which connect the uterus to the ovaries and are necessary to conceive a child. Binam’s medical records indicate that the doctor discovered that the tube was swollen.
While women can still potentially conceive with an intact tube and ovary, doctors who spoke to the AP said that the removal of the tube was likely unnecessary and should never have occurred without Binam’s consent.
Doctors also questioned how Amin discovered the swollen tube because performing a D&C would not normally involve exploring a woman’s fallopian tubes.
In 2013, state and federal investigators sued Amin, the Irwin County Hospital Authority, and a group of other doctors over allegations that they falsely billed Medicare and Medicaid.
The lawsuit was resolved in 2015 with no known penalties against Amin. The hospital paid a settlement of US $ 520,000, saying that no doctor paid anything and that the doctors had been “released from all responsibility.”
The Georgia Medical Board lists Amin as a licensed physician without public disciplinary action.
