Fabio Ortega allegedly abused 300 patients as hospital failed to intervene -

A Chicago-area health-care system allowed an obstetrician-gynecologist to continue practicing medicine unsupervised for more than a year while police investigated reports that he sexually assaulted two patients, a new lawsuit alleges. During that time, he allegedly abused at least six additional patients.

Fabio Ortega, now 77 and a former doctor, was sentenced in 2021 to three years’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting the two patients, though allegations of his abuse detailed in the complaint date back more than three decades. The lawsuit, filed by one of the final patients he treated, claims he abused more than 300 patients and was able to do so because his employer gave him the platform despite numerous complaints.

NorthShore University HealthSystem and Swedish Covenant Hospital “concealed the abuse and countless other red flags for decades while giving Ortega unfettered access to abuse female patients at its hospitals and clinics under the guise of medical care,” the lawsuit filed Monday in the Circuit Court of Cook County alleges.

Parker Stinar, one of the attorneys on the case from Stinar Gould Grieco & Hensley, pointed to settlements against high-profile doctors like Michigan State University’s disgraced former sports physician Larry Nassar, a case Stinar also worked that resulted in MSU agreeing to pay $500 million to victims.

“These cases resulted in criminal prosecution, terminations, and large monetary resolutions,” he said in an interview. “We intend to hold Swedish and NorthShore accountable for their inactions in the same way, and hopefully create safer medical care across the country moving forward.”

In an unsigned statement, Endeavor Health, which now owns the two health-care systems and has nine hospitals in the area, said it could not comment on specific allegations because of patient privacy and the ongoing litigation. The statement added that it had “enhanced” its policies to make sure abuse or threatened abuse is reported and that it investigates all allegations of sexual assault that are reported.

Ortega, who completed parole in October after serving a year in prison, could not be reached for comment Friday.

The lawsuit represents the latest high-profile legal action against doctors accused of sexual assault in recent years. Along with Nassar, medical providers from the University of Southern California and Columbia University have been accused of abusing hundreds of their patients. Stinar said similar cases could become more frequent as more patients learn what abuse under the guise of medical care looks like.

In Ortega’s case, the abuse followed typical patterns, said Symone Shinton, another attorney for the plaintiff in the most recent case, identified as Jane Doe 300. The complaint included details of her encounters with Ortega, as well as those of other unnamed former patients of his.

Those included vaginal examinations with his ungloved fingers that were closer to “sexual stimulation than examination,” she said, and breast examinations during nearly every appointment. He allegedly preyed often on low-income patients, immigrants who spoke only Spanish and were sometimes seeing a gynecologist for the first time in their lives — which meant some didn’t know what was medically routine and what was abuse.

Some, Stinar said, haven’t seen one since they were treated by Ortega.

One of the most startling instances of abuse Shinton said she found occurred in 2016, when a patient who was a rape victim went to NorthShore for a rape kit. She was assigned to Ortega, who had already been the subject of patient complaints.

This patient’s experience followed Ortega’s typical pattern of “examining” the patient’s breasts and using his fingers for a vaginal examination — rather than a speculum, according to Shinton, who interviewed the patient, who has thus far stayed anonymous in the legal case.

Upon leaving the examination, the patient told Shinton, she went to the front desk of the medical office and asked if that examination was normal.

“Was that necessary?” she asked, according to the attorney. “It didn’t feel necessary.”

The front desk allegedly told her it was typical of his process and not to worry.

Shinton said that pattern, of the hospital downplaying or normalizing the alleged abuse, is one of the central issues of the lawsuit.

“The hospital has a duty to protect its patients from harm,” Shinton said. “Instead, they silenced the complaints.”

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Endeavor did not address in its statement the allegations that two of the hospital systems it now owns allowed Ortega to continue treating patients unsupervised after the initial abuse was allegedly reported to hospital staff.

“We have absolutely no tolerance for abuse of any kind,” the statement said. “We have focused on reviewing individual claims and are committed to engaging in a process that allows for meaningful review and response to each person impacted.”

Shinton said the lawsuit against the hospital — and the allegations of more than 300 women — was happening now because many of the patients hadn’t initially recognized Ortega’s actions as sexual assault. Roughly two months ago, she and Stinar, among others, began seeking out Ortega’s patients by describing his abusive behaviors in social media posts.

The abuse began as early as 1989, the lawsuit claims, and included grooming, visiting or calling patients outside of work and asking intrusive questions about patients’ sex life while his fingers were in their vaginas or his hands on their breasts.

The lawsuit alleged that Ortega disclosed to Swedish in his 1989 job application that he had previously been sued by a patient who alleged he had performed a procedure without written consent. In 1993, a patient told another doctor that Ortega had touched her inappropriately and asked her to get fully undressed each time she visited for her prenatal care appointments in 1992.

She asked Ortega’s assistants if it was medically necessary to get undressed at each appointment — which, the lawsuit said, it wasn’t — and both told her it was.

During those visits, Ortega allegedly also asked about the sexual positions she and her husband liked. When the same patient became pregnant again in 1993 and was referred to Ortega, she told a family medicine doctor at the Swedish facility of her experiences and requested to be referred to someone else. She was, but the doctor did not further report her allegations, the lawsuit claims.

In later years, according to the lawsuit, Ortega asked one patient whether she had anal sex and another claimed Ortega inserted his fingers into her anus without her consent after she gave birth. When yet another reported similar actions to the hospital, its staff said they didn’t believe the patient, the lawsuit said. In 2004, that patient went to the Chicago police, and months later, Ortega asked for a one-year leave without explanation, according to the lawsuit. It was not immediately clear whether police investigated the allegation.

The lawsuit alleges that Swedish then failed to notify Ortega’s other patients of the complaints. Similar patterns occurred at NorthShore’s facilities, where Ortega began working in 2006, including patients telling staff about alleged abuse, according to the lawsuit.

In 2016, a female patient told the NorthShore office manager she was uncomfortable seeing Ortega. The office manager told the patient there were no prior complaints about him. In another case, a receptionist laughed when a patient described being sexually abused by Ortega and said that practice was “normal.”

“The hospitals received complaint after complaint and failed to take any action,” Stinar said.

The case came to a head in 2017, when a patient reported Ortega’s abuse to police in Skokie, Ill., where the facility she was treated is located. The criminal investigation lasted 18 months. The lawsuit alleges Ortega was allowed to treat patients throughout it with no supervision.

Over the next few months, Ortega abused at least six more women, including a front desk employee who was also a patient, the lawsuit alleged.

Ortega eventually told police he “may” have asked the patient about her sexual fantasies in August 2017. NorthShore then allegedly continued to allow Ortega to treat patients without supervision.

The day after the police interview, the lawsuit alleges Ortega abused another patient.

Ortega was arrested in September 2018. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation suspended his license and later revoked it because of the sexual assault allegations. In October 2021, Ortega pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two female patients and received a three-year sentence.

“You have broken me,” one patient said in a victim impact statement at the trial, according to CBS News. “You haunt my dreams and creep into my most intimate moments. I am a shell of my former self.”

The lawsuit alleges the hospital system never notified his former patients.

Jane Doe 300 is seeking damages against Ortega for battery, the intentional infliction of emotional distress and gender-related violence, and from the hospitals for assisting or encouraging gender-based violence, negligence and failure to warn patients of complaints against Ortega, among other allegations.

“Dr. Ortega is not the only physician to use the power of his white coat to abuse vulnerable patients,” Shinton said. “The only way to protect our women, our children, our boys, is to ensure that hospitals understand that the onus is on them.”

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