A GYNAECOLOGIST accused of cutting out wombs and sterilising several patients without their consent is feared to have operated on a further 170 women.
Outraged patients have swamped Dr Javaid Perwaiz’s offices demanding their medical records after he was arrested by the FBI in America.
The 69-year-old was nabbed after a tip-off from a hospital worker in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Yesterday, he was ordered to be held in custody without bond on charges of health care fraud.
A prosecutor said 173 women have now come forward since his arrest to report similar experiences, including repetitive surgeries that they never asked for.
The FBI’s arrest warrant affidavit alleges Perwaiz, an obstetrician-gynaecologist, has a long history of performing unnecessary surgical procedures on his patients without their knowledge or permission.
One former patient complained that she had been left unable to have a child after both of her Fallopian tubes had been “burned down to nubs”.
This makes natural conception impossible for her.
Another patient sought treatment in 2012 after an abnormal Pap smear.
The affidavit says he advised her to undergo a hysterectomy, but she objected, agreeing only to outpatient laparoscopic surgery, to just remove her ovaries.
When she awoke, she was “shocked” to learn Perwaiz had performed a total abdominal hysterectomy.
He’d perforated her bladder during the surgery, and the woman had to be hospitalised for six days after developing sepsis.
Assistant US Attorney V. Kathleen Dougherty told the US District Court on Thursday that prosecutors have heard from nearly 200 who allege similar experiences.
Perwaiz is accused of lodging fraudulent claims to health care benefit programmes — including Medicaid — seeking reimbursement for the operations.
Prosecutors said he performed the surgeries “for his own financial gain”.
Dougherty said Perwaiz owns five luxury automobiles, including one Bentley and four Mercedes-Benz vehicles.
The doctor’s lawyer, Lawrence Woodward, said he had received a flood of unsolicited emails from patients who have described Perwaiz’s “fine qualities” and “how he helped them”.
The judge rejected his request to release the doctor on bond, calling the allegations “deeply disturbing”.
Pakistani-trained Perwaiz has already faced EIGHT malpractice lawsuits in his 30-year-career.
In 1996 his medical license was suspended after he pleaded guilty to tax evasion.
Perwaiz is either 67 or 69, but his exact age is unknown.
Prosecutors said FBI agents searching his medical office found documents showing he had instructed his staff to falsify his date of birth when filling out certain paperwork.
