A Virginia physician is behind bars after being accused of performing unnecessary and life-altering surgeries, including hysterectomies, without his patients’ knowledge or consent.
Javaid Perwaiz, 69, who has faced similar allegations dating back to the 1980s, was arrested on Friday and charged with health care fraud and making false statements to federal investigators, according to a copy of the criminal complaint obtained by HuffPost.
Perwaiz’s arrest followed a federal investigation into his medical practices in Chesapeake back in September 2018, which came after the FBI received a tip from a hospital employee.
According to the arrest affidavit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the obstetrician and gynecologist would push unnecessary surgeries on his patients, who in many cases were not aware of the procedures that he was performing.
In one incident, a woman said Perwaiz removed her fallopian tubes without her consent or knowledge in 2011. She was receiving treatment from him for an ectopic pregnancy and for what she believed was endometriosis.
In the three years afterward, she said she asked Perwaiz if she’d be able to have another baby even as she did not get pregnant. In 2014, she consulted a fertility specialist who discovered that both of her fallopian tubes had been “burnt down to nubs, making natural conception impossible.” This was how she learned that Perwaiz had removed her fallopian tubes without her consent, according to the affidavit.
In another case, a woman said Perwaiz performed a hysterectomy on her without her consent in 2012, after she agreed to have her ovaries removed following a pap smear that he said detected pre-cancerous cells.
The woman said Perwaiz had pushed her to undergo a full hysterectomy, but she declined and chose instead to undergo laparoscopic surgery to have her ovaries removed. When she woke from the surgery, she said she learned that he had performed a total hysterectomy and that he had perforated her bladder in the process, causing her to develop sepsis that hospitalized her for nearly a week. She later obtained a copy of her medical records and saw no mention of “pre-cancerous cells.” She also said another doctor told her there were less invasive procedures available, including medication.
Back in 1982, Perwaiz lost hospital privileges at Maryview Hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia, for performing unnecessary surgeries, according to federal authorities. He was investigated by the Virginia Board of Medicine for performing those surgeries, which predominantly consisted of hysterectomies, “without appropriate medical indications and contrary to sound medical judgment.” He was ultimately censured for poor record-keeping.
The current arrest affidavit notes that he has been the subject of at least eight malpractice lawsuits. Those suits accused him of falsifying patient records to justify a medical procedure, failure to use less invasive techniques, performing as many as 30 surgeries in one day, and providing substandard care that caused permanent injuries and life-threatening injuries.
In 1996, Perwaiz’s medical license was temporarily revoked after he pleaded guilty to two counts of tax evasion, according to the affidavit.
His attorneys did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment.