A nurse who worked at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia has filed a whistleblower complaint against the facility and the private company that runs it. In a 27-page report filed with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, Dawn Wooten claims that one of the doctors was performing questionable hysterectomies on the women being held in the detention center.
In many cases, the women were not provided enough information about the procedure to give informed consent to undergo surgery.
"These immigrant women, I don't think they really, totally, all the way understand this is what's going to happen depending on who explains it to them," Wooten said.
She said that the doctor, who was known as the "the uterus collector," recommended the life-altering surgery, even though it may not have been medically necessary.
"Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy -- just about everybody," Wooten said. "He's even taken out the wrong ovary on a young lady."
Wooten also claimed that other nurses would lie on medical records, claiming to have checked on patients even though they did not. Patients who were suspected of having COVID-19 were not tested, and instead given over the counter medication. Wooten said the facility received two $14,000 rapid-testing COVID-19 machines but never trained the staff on how to use them.
Wooten also accused workers at the facility of shredding complaints made by the detainees.
ICE denied the allegations in the report. "That said, in general, anonymous, unproven allegations, made without any fact-checkable specifics, should be treated with the appropriate skepticism they deserve," the agency said in a statement.
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