Three hundred former patients of a Chicago area gynecologist believe they were violated, and two top Chicago hospitals did nothing to protect them.
According to a lawsuit filed in Cook County on Tuesday, the patients said Endeavor Health, which operates Northstone Medical Group and Swedish Covenant Hospital, is as at fault.
In 2021, Dr. Fabio Ortega pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two patients. However, once the news became public, more of his former patients came forward with accusations that they were also sexually assaulted.
"I thought that I was the only one," said the woman at the center of Tuesday's lawsuit, identified only as Jane Doe. "You don't think when you go to a doctor, you're going to ... be raped, or touched inappropriately."
Jane Doe Speaks Up
According to her lawsuit, Jane Doe said the abuse began when her husband stopped coming to her gynecological appointments in the early 2000s.
"I start noticing uncomfortable conversations with Dr. Ortega, asking me like, how my husband was in bed," she said.
Jane Doe said, that while she did search online for complaints on Dr. Ortega, she found none and that she did not know if his behavior was normal for a gynecologist. That changed in 2016.
"He told me, 'I want you to have an orgasm.' That's when I told him, 'No, I feel uncomfortable. I don't like it, I'm not going to do it.' And that was the last time I saw Dr. Ortega," said Jane Doe, who did not speak about her experience initially and only came out after his sentencing.
"He knew that using the white coat could get away with these forms of abuse, and sadly this patient population was not believed, was not heard the way they should've been from the hospital," Parker Stinar, Jane Doe's attorney, and managing partner with Stinar Gould Grieco & Hensley, said.
Stinar said Ortega had "a history of sexual abuse and predatory behavior against female patients" that started in the early 1990s, yet the lawsuit alleges both Northshore and Swedish "ignored and concealed the abuse."
According to the suit, there was a police complaint made against Ortega in 2004, but nothing resulted from it.
The convicted man worked at Swedish Covenant Hospital between 1989 and 2007 and was employed by Northshore University Health System between 2006 and 2017.
"Over numerous decades, patients raised concerns about Dr Ortega. Whether it was to his schedule clerk, saying 'I never want to see him again' or a subsequent medical provider, nurse, physician of 'that made my uncomfortable.' Even in 2004 there was a police report made and there was no further action or investigation made. Hospitals need to be held responsible for inaction," Stinar said.
