Biden DOJ targeting whistleblowers who blew the lid off Children's Hospital violating state's Medicaid laws for transgender clinic

HOUSTON, TX - Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH), under fire after a whistleblower came forward and alleged the facility committed Medicaid fraud, removed a reporter from the facility who was seeking to speak with its CEO Mark Wallace about the attorney general’s investigation into the hospital’s sex change clinic, according to journalist and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute Christopher Rufo. 

At least two whistleblowers have come forward and alleged that TCH committed Medicaid fraud within its sex-change program, Texas Scorecard reported. 

Rufo confirmed with a spokesperson in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office that an investigation is currently underway by that office looking into Medicaid fraud at the hospital. Rufo said the only possible avenues for the investigation are either criminal or civil. 

“If the state pursues a civil case against Texas Children’s the hospital could lose a significant amount of funding and, in the maximal outcome, even lose access to the state Medicaid program,” Rufo explained. “If the state decides to pursue criminal charges, the doctors involved could face significant fines and up to 10 years in prison.” 

One of the whistleblowers, Vanessa Sivadge, a nurse at the hospital, told Rufo that she had identified two patients at the facility who received coverage for transgender hormones and surgeries through TCH’s Health Plan STAR, a “no-cost Medicaid managed care plan.” If true, the conduct may violate state law. 

Writing in City Journal, Rufo reported that he published an investigative report last year showing that although TCH had promised to shut down its pediatric gender clinic, the hospital continued to administer hormone drugs to children as young as 11. As a result of Rufo’s report, Paxton’s office launched an investigation and Texas legislators followed by passing SB 14, which prohibits all transgender medical interventions on minors. 

Yet unknown to anyone at the time, doctors at TCH were engaged in something even more nefarious…and probably illegal. Two of the hospital’s “prominent physicians,” Drs. Richard Ogden Roberts and David Paul “cut corners, and according to the whistleblower, committed Medicaid fraud to secure funds for the hospital’s child sex-change program,” Rufo wrote. 

Sivadge accepted a position several years ago at Texas Children’s, having dreamed of being a nurse since high school and helping children. The position at TCH allowed her to fulfill those dreams, or so she thought. 

That began to change, however, in 2021, when she noticed a significant increase in the number of “transgender children” being treated at the hospital. Among maladies they suffered from included “depression, anxiety, addiction, suicide attempts, physical abuse, and discomfort with puberty,” Rufo wrote. Sivadge told Rufo that instead of treating those psychological conditions, TCH doctors instead diagnosed the children with “gender dysphoria” and then prescribed a series of “gender affirming” treatments. 

Sivadge was repulsed by what she saw. 

“In the cardiac clinic, we were taking sick kids and making them better,” she said. “In the transgender clinic, it was the opposite. We were harming these kids.” 

Sivadge was relieved the following year when Paxton effectively had the gender clinic shut down…or so she thought. In fact, days after Wallace claimed the clinic was shutting down, it secretly reopened for business. 

It was discovered that Roberts, Paul, and another doctor, Kristy Rialon were handling dozens of pediatric sex-change cases, including surgeries, puberty blockers, implanting hormone devices, and making specialty referrals. Rufo wrote that their motivation wasn’t from merely ideology, but also for “prestige”: “they were saviors of the oppressed, the vanguard of gender medicine.” 

After she read Rufo’s initial investigative report, Sivadge reached out to Rufo to relate what she had witnessed. 

“I work very closely with this provider, Dr. Richard Roberts. I’ve been in the room with him when he speaks with these patients,” she told Rufo in an interview. “Dr. Robers is extremely encouraging of their transition and will essentially do whatever he can to make sure that they are happy, at least externally happy. Because I am absolutely certain that they are not internally happy. He is very accommodating. He does whatever they want. Essentially, there is no critical analysis of the process.” 

Sivadge told Rufo she believed Roberts and other physicians were manipulating some of these patients into participating in “gender-affirming care.” Even when parents objected, the doctors “bulldozed them,” she said. In fact, parents were led to believe that if they didn’t consent, the hospital would call Child Protective Services. 

Rufo then said about two months after he spoke with Sivadge, she “called me in a panic.” The Biden Justice Department in the form of the FBI sent two agents, Paul Nixon and David McBride, to her home. The agents asked her about “some of the things that have been going on at [her] work lately,” then asked to enter her home. She told Rufo she was “terrified.” 

Sivadge said the agents told her she was a “person of interest” in an investigation looking into the whistleblower who exposed the sex change program. They alleged the whistleblower had violated “federal privacy laws.” 

“They threatened me,” Sivadge said. “They promised they would make life difficult for me if I was trying to protect the leaker. They said I was ‘not safe’ at work and claimed that someone at my workplace had given my name to the FBI.” 

Rufo said Sivadge later found out that the FBI, the hospital, and federal prosecutors were all engaged in the story. Rufo wrote that “both the Department of Justice and the hospital leadership were ideologically committed to ‘transgender medicine.’” 

The Dallas Express reached out to the FBI, however were not able to independently confirm the identity of the two FBI agents. 

“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,” Connor Hagan, an FBI public affairs officer, told the outlet. 

“FBI and Department of Justice guidelines do not allow me to provide more information at this time,” he wrote. 

The original whistleblower was a doctor at TCH, Dr. Eithan Haim. He was the individual who told the City Journal last year that TCH had continued its transgender program. He was eventually indicted on four felony counts this month and has pleaded not guilty to the charges. The allegation is that Haim “obtained unauthorized individually identifiable health HIPAA protected information on pediatric patients” and “caused malicious harm to TCH, pediatric patients at TCH, and its physicians by contacting a media contact.” 

Haim and Rufo dispute the DOJ’s claims, saying the leaked documents about the transgender program redacted private 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 told the Dallas Express. “In this case, the process is the punishment.” 

A GiveSendGo page has been set up for Haim's legal defense from this DOJ-inspired hit job, another example of Biden Department of Justice lawfare.

Sivadge this year noticed discrepancies in paperwork. After being visited by the FBI, she noticed that it appeared some doctors at the clinic were possibly violating the law. 

Sivadge learned that Texas law made it illegal for hospitals to bill Medicaid for gender transition procedures. The Texas Medicaid Provider Procedures Manual states that “sex change operations” are “not benefits of Texas Medicaid.” In fact, in 2021, Texas Medicaid officials told the Kaiser Family Foundation that the prohibitions were not limited merely to genital surgery but “explicitly excludes coverage of all gender affirming health services.” 

Sivadge noticed two patients who were undergoing gender treatment from Roberts and Paul respectively, one was a biological female, the second a biological male. The female patient was given a regimen of testosterone injections. The second patient, a male, was already on testosterone blockers and estrogen when he started seeing Paul. Paul increased the dose of estrogen and suggested the possibility of breast implants. 

One thing struck Sivadge–both of the above patients were enrolled in Texas Children’s Health Plan STAR, the “no-cost Medicaid managed care plan.” Rufo wrote that despite the law, “this was standard practice at Texas Children’s Hospital.” In fact, Roberts admitted in a 2023 affidavit related to a lawsuit against SB 14 that he had several patients in the transgender medicine program “who receive their health coverage through Medicaid.” 

Sivadge was certain about what was happening at TCH: 

“The largest children’s hospital in the country is illegally billing Medicaid for transgender procedures,” she said. “It is evident that the hospital continues to believe it is above the law not just by concealing the existence of their transgender medicine program from the public, but by stealing from the federal government.” 

For Sivadge, coming forward as a whistleblower is a duty of conscience, calling her role as a whistleblower “a form of redemption,” Rufo wrote. 

“I was told to do something I knew was wrong,” she said. “It made me sick that the lie called ‘gender-affirming care’ was being sold to parents and children and creating hugely lucrative profits in secret–and I was part of it.” 

For Sivadge, the FBI’s going to her house and attempting to intimidate her has to be unnerving. She would have been better off if she threatened Jews on college campuses or defaced statues and monuments in a major city. Those people get away with it while the Biden Justice Department looks the other way.