The second medical professional to blow the whistle on Texas Children’s Hospital has gone on to reveal that the organization is rife with doctors who are “driven by a political agenda” on the transgender issue, according to a report.
Vanessa Sivadge, a nurse at Texas Children’s whose whistleblower allegations The Dallas Express previously covered, detailed a series of concerns about her employer in an interview with the New York Post this week.
Speaking with the Post, Sivadge said doctors pressure parents into allowing their children to transition genders. Another questionable practice she claimed to have witnessed was an alleged manipulation of medical diagnoses to ensure transgender procedures were covered by taxpayer dollars.
“These doctors are driven by a political agenda, like an ideological agenda,” she said.
“Parents were manipulated by doctors with an ideological agenda to go down this path of medical transition for their child,” she continued. “And I do think that doctors would use manipulative language to suggest that if they didn’t do this, their child would commit suicide or they would harm themselves.”
Sivadge went public with criticism of her employer last week in an interview with City Journal. She claimed to have witnessed two patients receiving coverage for transgender hormones and surgeries through the Texas Children’s Health Plan STAR. The program is a “no-cost Medicaid managed care plan.”
Texas law prevents Medicaid from funding transgender procedures, as previously reported by DX.
Sivadge provided additional details about this alleged malpractice in her interview with the Post. She claimed doctors would misdiagnose patients who identify as transgender in an attempt to dodge the regulations on Medicaid in the state. This allegedly included claims that young female patients had testosterone deficiencies and young male patients had estrogen deficiencies.
“Providers … were misdiagnosing patients intentionally for the purpose of justifying puberty blockers and hormones,” she said.
“The doctor would do things based on what the patient wanted and not what was medically best for them,” she continued. “There was just no discussion of what are the risks, what are the long-term effects.”
Texas passed a law last year to ban transgender procedures on minors.
Attorney General Ken Paxton confirmed last week he was investigating Texas Children’s over the claims of medical fraud.
DX reached out to each individual member of the Texas Children’s leadership team. This includes:
Mark Wallace, CEO; Debra F. Sukin, president; Weldon Gage, executive vice president and chief financial officer; Dean Andropoulos, anesthesiologist-in-chief; Michael A. Belfort, obstetrician/gynecologist-in-chief; Larry Hollier Jr., surgeon-in-chief; Thierry Huisman, radiologist-in-chief; Lara Shekerdemian, pediatrician-in-chief; Jeffrey Shilt, community-in-chief; James Versalovic, pathologist-in-chief; Huda Zoghbi, research-in-chief; Linda Aldred, executive vice president and chief human resources officer; Myra Davis, executive vice president and chief information and innovation officer; Dan DiPrisco, executive vice president; Matt Girotto, executive vice president; Keith Nelson, executive vice president and chief investment officer; Tabitha Rice, executive vice president; and Russ Williams, senior vice president.
None of them responded.
Sivadge is the second whistleblower at Texas Children’s to allege medical malpractice at the hospital. Dr. Eithan Haim, now a doctor in the Dallas area, provided documents to City Journal last year that proved the hospital continued its transgender program after promising to end it over legal concerns.
Haim was then investigated by the Biden administration and indicted on four felony counts this month over alleged HIPAA violations, as previously reported by DX. He said the documents he leaked to City Journal redacted all personal patient information.
“The reason they have to come after me is to make an example out of me so other whistleblowers don’t speak out like I did,” Haim previously told DX. “In this case, the process is the punishment.”
Sivadge said she faced her own pushback from the Biden administration. Christopher Rufo of City Journal reported two FBI agents appeared at her house to inform her she was a “person of interest” in a federal investigation.
“They said, ‘We’re here because we’re aware of your views on transgender medicine,’” Sivadge told the New York Post, referring to the FBI agents who appeared at her house. “They continued to talk and say, ‘You’re a person of interest in an investigation of someone who has released patient confidential information, violating HIPAA.’”
Sivadge said the agents attempted to intimidate her.
“They said, ‘We would like your help in finding him,’ and ‘We would like you to help us expose him,’ and ‘If you don’t do that, we will make your life very difficult,’” she continued. “They used very veiled language, like kind of threats, to suggest that if I did not help them, they could not protect me.”
Connor Hagan, an FBI public affairs officer, previously told The Dallas Express his agency is unable to comment on the alleged confrontation.
“While individuals are free to speak about their interactions with the FBI, we do not discuss, describe, or confirm any contact we allegedly have with individuals,” he said. “FBI and Department of Justice guidelines do not allow me to provide more information at this time.”
The agency provided a similar statement to the New York Post.
Sivadge said the FBI’s tactics do not scare her.
“We just listened, and they left, and we knew from that moment on that our lives would never be the same and that we would not be silent,” she told the Post.