A Nurse Discloses That A Startling Number Of Women In An ICE Detention Center Were Sterilized Against Their Will

Left Voice

Sometimes, some unspeakable things happen in places, and continue to do so, until someone ends up reporting it. Well, a whistleblower at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility filed a startling complaint through several legal advocacy groups about a disturbing “jarring medical neglect” towards detainees. This nurse admitted that there was an ongoing practice of performing mass hysterectomies on female prisoners, among other things.

With the help of several detained immigrants, nurse Dawn Wooten filed a complaint that focuses on dreadful conditions of severe neglect at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) in Ocilla, Georgia. It is operated by LaSalle South Corrections, a private prison company. Issues include shredding of medical requests by detainees, failure to test for infectious diseases, fabricating medical records, and numerous other reckless and unsafe actions by the ICDC management. Detained immigrants who spoke out against this irresponsible treatment were punished with solitary confinement.


The advocacy groups filed the complaint with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Homeland Security. The groups were the Georgia Detention Watch, the South Georgia Immigrant Support Network, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, and Project South.

Project South interviewed several women that said a lot of detained women were subject to an astounding high rate of hysterectomies, which is an operation which removes parts of the uterus, or the entire organ. Most women were also confused when asked why the surgery was needed. The complaint said, Recently, a detained immigrant told Project South that she talked to five different women detained at ICDC between October and December 2019 who had a hysterectomy done. When she talked to them about the surgery, the women ‘reacted confused when explaining why they had one done. ‘ The woman told Project South that it was as though the women were ‘trying to tell themselves it’s going to be OK.’”

Everyday Health

A detainee even compared it to being like an experimental lab rat in a concentration camp. When I met all these women who had surgeries, I thought this was like an experimental concentration camp. It was like they were experimenting with our bodies.” She mentioned that there was one particular gynecologist outside the facility responsible for the hysterectomies.

Nurse Wooten also cited that one woman wasn’t properly anesthetized during her operation and overheard the doctor claim that he had removed the wrong ovary. Eventually, the woman returned to the doctor and had her other ovary removed as well. Wooten was very vocal about the hysterectomies. “We’ve questioned among ourselves , like goodness, he’s taking everybody’s stuff out.” The former full-time employee at ICDC continued, That’s his specialty, he’s the uterus collector. I know that’s ugly.” Wooten added, “ Is he collecting these things or something…Everybody he sees, he’s taking all their uterus out or he’s taking their tubes out. Everybody’s uterus cannot be that bad…what in the world.”

The former nurse also explained that a lot of the detained women didn’t understand the medical purpose of the forced operation. And some nurses who did not speak Spanish were able to force consent from the detainees “by simply googling  Spanish.” In one case where a detainee scheduled for the hysterectomy questioned the procedure, she was given several explanations  that were completely unalike. “ She was originally told by the doctor that she had an ovarian cyst and was going to have a small 20-minute procedure done drilling three small holes in her stomach to drain the cyst,” the report said.

The report continued, The officer who was transporting her to the hospital told her that she was receiving a hysterectomy to have her womb removed. When the hospital refused to operate on her because her [CV-19] test came back positive for antibodies, she was transferred back to ICDC where the ICDC nurse said that the procedure she was going to have done entailed dilating her v***** and scraping tissue off.”

 Another immigrant explained that they are usually afraid that their stay at ICDC is like a death sentence. I don’t want to die here,” she said. “Please release me, let me be with my family…a lot of people are afraid.”

And yet another detainee explained that a nurse informed her that the procedure was meant to prevent her from continued heavy menstrual bleeding. When the detainee explained that she never had such problems, the nurse snapped and “responded by getting angry and agitated and began yelling at her.” Surely out of the ordinary.

NPR

The incarcerated women also testified that they were subjected to extremely unsanitary conditions in the medical and quarantine unit of the ICDC. One woman claimed she was forced to use her shampoo to clean her cell because the staff deprived her of cleaning solutions. Another had to use her socks to wipe dry her cell.

“The place is not equipped for humans,” explains an immigrant. “This is the dirtiest facility I have ever been in: everything is dirty; one shower for more than 50 people; one bathroom for all of us; I don’t even know how to give more details because it is all nasty, really nasty; only God is taking care of us here.”

Another detainee said that the filthy conditions have driven many of them to despair and some even attempted suicide as a way out. She explained, If it wasn’t for my faith in God, I think I would have gone insane, and just break down and probably gone as far as hurting myself. There are a lot of people here who end up in medical trying to kill themselves because of how crazy it is.”


Of course the facility reacted to the complaint. A LaSalle spokesperson said in an interview,  that the private prison is  firmly committed to the health and welfare of those in our care. We are deeply committed to delivering high-quality, culturally responsive services in safe and humane environments.”

ICE has also responded to coverage of the complaint by stating that the testimonies of Wooten and the detainees were “anonymous, unproven allegations, made without any fact-checkable specifics.”

 Sadly, the US has an awful track record of forcing people, especially from communities of color, into unwanted sterilization. Under international standards, these are appalling human rights abuse under the category of. Eugenics. California, for example, has sterilized about 20,000 people in state institutions for over seven decades. In the south, black women were sterilized unknowingly without their consent during C-sections when treated as “practice” by medical students. In some cases, sterilization was a condition for maintaining welfare benefits.

In a nation where the rights of people are very important, some facilities and institutions violate these basic rights for whatever reason. Even detainees or prisoners have basic human rights. Violators should be reminded about this, and penalized for any abuses committed.

  

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