Chicago-area ob/gyn Fabio Ortega, MD, was sentenced to 3 years in prison on Tuesday after pleading guilty to two criminal sexual assaults, but the victims’ lawyer says these represent just a fraction of the damage he’s caused.
“The sexual abuse is the tip of the iceberg,” said Tamara Holder, the attorney representing 36 women — in civil lawsuits against Ortega and former employer NorthShore University HealthSystem — who have accused the physician of sexually assaulting them under the guise of medical care.
“It is hands down, not exaggerating, the largest doctor-patient sexual abuse case in Illinois history,” said Holder.
Nine civil lawsuits against Ortega and NorthShore are pending and six have been settled, said Holder. According to the lawsuits, some of the women had been under the impression that Ortega had been providing necessary care until they heard other accounts in the news.
With 170 days’ credit for previous electronic monitoring and good behavior, Ortega could serve less than a year of prison time, The Chicago Tribune and Patch reported.
Filings from the Cook County Circuit Court allege that NorthShore, which is affiliated with the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, allowed the physician’s abuse to continue even as complaints made directly to the hospital stacked up. After Ortega was arrested and charged with criminal sexual assault, the hospital system allowed him to “quietly retire,” according to the documents. “Not only did NorthShore refuse to believe its female patients … it also billed them for Ortega’s abuses,” one complaint reads.
The lawsuits allege that the physician’s conduct included repeating the same “broad range of techniques, without a medical need or purpose, for his own sexual gratification” — including asking women under his care for invasive personal details about their sex lives and fantasies during unnecessary breast, genital, and rectal exams; prescribing “Kegels” as an excuse to touch patients sexually; performing un-gloved exams and attempting to cause sexual arousal; trying to arrange “quid pro quo” agreements like exchanging medical records for coffee dates; and grooming, or establishing trust, by calling patients outside of office hours or scheduling unnecessary appointments.
“He is the Larry Nassar of Illinois,” Holder said.
These behaviors took precedence over patient care, according to a number of the lawsuits. Ortega allegedly ordered excessive tests for sexual transmitted diseases, without medical need, and altered patient records — for example, writing that he used a speculum for exams when he did not.
A lawsuit filed by Jane Doe 17 (which says the lawsuit was settled outside of court) recounts how the patient complained multiple times to the hospital, and on Yelp, after Ortega asked her deeply personal questions while performing a pregnancy ultrasound in 2013. Then, before giving birth to another child in 2016, she requested that Ortega not deliver the baby. When Ortega turned out to be the on-call doctor during her labor, she requested that he not touch her, but the filings allege that her requests were ignored, and that the physician broke her water without consent and performed a discharge exam.
Ortega, 75, was licensed for 39 years in the state. He was an ob/gyn first at Swedish Hospital and then at NorthShore’s clinics and hospitals (which bought Swedish in 2019) for 14 years. Holder says NorthShore hired Ortega even as an ongoing medical malpractice suit against Ortega was unfolding in 2004, which alleged that he caused the death of a child by failing to provide proper care for the pregnant mother. One of the lawsuits also says that he had been sued twice by female patients before being hired.
As early as 2013, the court filings allege, a patient complained to NorthShore about Ortega’s behavior during a postpartum exam. In 2014, another patient complained to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which licenses and disciplines physicians. From 2013 to 2017, at least four more patients complained that Ortega made them uncomfortable, and at least one reported that he had sexually assaulted her, while other patients asked not to be scheduled with him. But, according to the Jane Doe 17 lawsuit, NorthShore “consistently steered new patients to Ortega because he consistently had an open schedule, unlike the other doctors in his group.”
In 2017, a patient told NorthShore that Ortega had sexually assaulted her hours earlier, according to the filings. The next month, the Skokie Police notified the hospital that they were conducting a criminal investigation into Ortega, after which he denied the account in interviews with hospital officials.
The lawsuits further allege that the hospital continued to let him see patients, unsupervised, for another 6 months, even after police made them aware a criminal investigation was underway.
“Even after NorthShore’s lawyers let the police interview him, they sent him back to work, and he went on to sexually assault women the very next day,” said Holder. “So ‘we didn’t know’? They can’t use that excuse.”
In September of 2018, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation suspended Ortega’s medical licence; the following month, he was indicted for sexual assault and removed from patient care.
In an official statement, NorthShore University HealthSystem said: “We have been working in good faith to reach a supportive resolution with those individuals who have raised claims. We respect the courage demonstrated by our patients in raising this matter and place great value in any opportunity to build upon the excellent quality of care we strive to provide our patients.” Ortega and the law firm representing him and NorthShore did not respond to requests for comment.
Source: MedicalNewsToday.com
