'I'm back on food stamps': Nurse who exposed 'uterus collector' still faces consequences

[cbabe]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/17/whistleblower-uterus-collector-repercussions-ice-detained-immigrant-women

‘I’m back on food stamps’: Nurse who exposed ‘uterus collector’ still faces consequences

Miranda Bryant
Mon 17 Oct 2022 05.00 EDT

When American nurse Dawn Wooten started asking questions about the alarming number of unwanted hysterectomies and gynaecological procedures being performed on detained immigrants at her workplace in Georgia, she was unfamiliar with the term whistleblower.

Now, more than two years on, she has no regrets about having raised the alarm with her report on Irwin County Detention Center that shook the US and Congress with allegations against a gynaecologist so notorious he was known as the “uterus collector”.

But Wooten is still coming to terms with the repercussions.

Her whistleblower status has come to define her identity and much of her life. It drove Wooten and four of her five children into hiding, where they slept in one bed to comfort one other. It left her depressed and suicidal, pushed her from independence to reliance on government benefits and has made it almost impossible for her to do the job that she loves.

The 44-year-old single mother from Tifton, Georgia sometimes gets up early as if she were going to work and puts on her nurse’s uniform and stethoscope before walking around her home. Such is her longing to work again as a nurse.

At one time I was suicidal, couldn’t pay bills, still can’t pay bills, my whole nursing career just plummeted.

“Pre-whistleblowing, I worked four 12-hour shifts a week, was able to meet needs, loved what I did, got up every morning faithful in the job that I did. I love nursing,” she told the Guardian, her passion audible.

Now there is no stability and despite spending every day on the phone trying to get a job, nobody will hire her. “Post-whistleblowing,” she said, “I am on antidepressants, at one time I was suicidal, couldn’t pay bills, still can’t pay bills, my whole nursing career just plummeted.”

She is unable to buy her children birthday and Christmas gifts, which she can no longer afford.

“I’m back on food stamps, I’m back on welfare, I’m back on Medicaid, I’m back trying to figure out how I’m going to make ends meet.”

…more…

[TheRealNorth]

1. Civil Servants that interfere with investigations and do this shit....

Need to start losing pensions.

[TygrBright]

2. She would be MOST welcome here in NM where we have a nursing shortage...

...AND a number of sanctuary cities for migrant people.

She'd be a plus-plus addition to a whole lot of organizations.

wistfully,
Bright

[live love laugh]

3. She'd be welcome in a lot of places. But uprooting is hard.

[Caliman73]

4. Not so sure.

Remember that while the general culture and atmosphere might be supportive, that companies are hesitant to hire someone who might expose their own problems.

I don't agree with that position or think it is valid, but that is the way businesses are. I say, if you don't want the bad things you do exposed, don't do bad things.

[bedazzled]

5. Needs a gofundme

I would donate.

[Ford_Prefect]

7. Where are all those wealthy Democratic patrons now????

We know they exist, at least we've been told that they do.

Without question this is someone who deserves meaningful assistance and intervention against the PTB.

WTF???

[calimary]

6. I guess this is another lesson teaching the folly of truth-telling.

You get MUCH more of the good stuff when you lie. And a far easier ride. And then there’s the donald. stepping up to underscore the success of that strategy.

[mercuryblues]

8. She is on welfare, getting death threats and the Dr who participated in Eugenics is...

Still practicing medicine. A man who stole reproductive rights from females by sterilizing them still has his medical license.

She did not meet or work with the gynaecologist, who was later identified as Dr Mahendra Amin and is understood to be still practising, but she heard references to the “uterus collector” from a detainee.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/17/whistleblower-uterus-collector-repercussions-ice-detained-immigrant-women