>> Earlier this week we heard from a whistle blower out of Georgia. She's a nurse who works
at a private prison facility that detains undocumented immigrants. And she said that
she was suspicious of the high number of hysterectomies that were being performed on women in this
detention center.
She felt that the women didn't actually know that they were going to get the procedure
and had not really consented to the procedure. Well now, the Associated Press has looked
into this story and they have spoken to some women. Who have unfortunately experienced
this and here's what we're learning now.
An Associated Press review of medical records for four women and interviews with lawyers
revealed allegations that Dr. Mahendra Amin performed surgeries on detained immigrants
that they never saw or fully understood. So there's a specific example of a 39 year old
Cuban woman who was actually told that she would undergo an operation to treat her ovarian
cysts.
But a month later, she's still not sure what procedure she underwent. So she keeps asking
them questions and she can't get a straight answer. She was quoted as telling the Associated
Press the only thing they told me was you're going to go to sleep and when you wake up,
we will have finished.
So there was a lack of information given to her prior to the surgery they told her that
they needed to deal with ovariances. They're not answering questions now. Now after she
repeatedly requested her medical records to find out Irwin County Detention Center gave
her more than 100 pages showing a diagnosis of cysts, but nothing from the day of the
surgery so they just keep refusing to give her the information she wants.
So she also kept her hospital bracelet and that's how she found out that it's likely
she was given a hysterectomy. It has the date August 14, and part of the doctor's name and
it is the doctor who was referenced earlier a gynecologist linked this week to allegations
of unwanted hysterectomies and other procedures done on detained immigrant women that jeopardize
not jeopardize eliminate their ability to have children.
That's what a hysterectomy does. It removes either part or the entirety of a woman's uterus.
>> Yeah. >> This is not in our country. No, it's beyond
bad. I mean, look, I don't want anyone to think like we don't have a history of this,
because we do. >> Yeah.
>> California has a history of sterilizing female prisoners, and so it's not far fetched
that it could happen again. And of course, I mean, we're dealing with a private prison
that's operating this facility, okay. Strike one, I'm just read about the history of private
prisons and how unbelievably brutal and vicious they've been to people in custody.
And then number two under the Trump administration that has gone to great lengths to dehumanize
people, it wouldn't surprise me at all that something like this would be going on.
>> Yeah. No, it seems pretty clear that what's going on here is that this private prison
company, I think it's called that operates this high extension center like they get paid
more if they're billing the government for these surgeries.
So, there's, maybe it's not like the cartoon villain Nazi guy who just has this mad scientist
thing but it's kind of thing where it's like they're quick to pull the trigger on like
little problems, surgeries, more surgery, the more surgeries you build for the more
money you get paid.
You make money on each surgery. It's the insanity of healthcare for profit. It's the insanity
of prison for profit, like it just creates these horrible incentives which will eventually
win the day. But he said this is like there's been a long history in America of forced sterilization
I know that.
In Puerto Rico, for example, because they were American citizens and could immigrate
to the United States, basically, anytime they wanted. There was this like panic in the 1930s
and 40s, that there would be like hordes of Puerto Ricans coming over so they basically
and that they were going to like take over, entire cities and things like that.
So they basically sterilize it almost like a third of the women in Puerto Rico between
in like 1940s. Yeah, I mean, it's a very little known story. There's a great good book called
The war against all Puerto Ricans that describes this process in great detail. A guy named
Cornelius Rhodes was the head of it he was then put on the cover of Life magazine for
his efforts.
But, yeah it's just this insane system that we have and like you said, obviously fomented
by the Trump administration. Obviously, these ice detention centers think they can operate
with impunity because no one's really gonna look into them. I mean, the Trump administration
is not gonna look into them they're not gonna care if there's rampant criminality going
on.
So yeah, I mean it's it's it's horrible. I don't know like what else to say about it.
>> Yeah, I mean, this is one of the store I mean, there's no what analysis can we give
other than this is brutal, horrendous. And this is I mean, again if there's a profit
motive here, of course whenever there's a profit motive whenever there's an opportunity
for private corporation.
In this case le sol to increase their profits by billing the government for certain medical
procedures, then yeah, they're going to take advantage of that they're gonna abuse it.
We've seen it happen in a number of various contexts. And it doesn't matter. Like there
is no question about morality here.
I mean, obviously we find it immoral. But when it comes to a private corporation and
its financial interests, they're not thinking about morality. They're thinking about their
bottom line, and they're thinking about their investors. That's how this works.
>> Yeah, it's the insanity of taking things that should be public goods public operations
publicly funded things and taking them private and and putting in a profit motive.
I mean, there's gonna be abuse in that sense that just someone's gonna take advantage of
it. Someone's gonna do it and we just have to take away that incentive, yes, we can morally
shame and condemn these people as we should because they are monsters. But as long as
the system remains in place, there will be others who do the same.
The sort of, we're gonna hold them accountable or whatever eventually it's gonna happen again
and again. You need to eliminate the profit motive altogether from healthcare and from
prisons 100% full stop.