NORFOLK, Va. — More than 100 additional women have joined a lawsuit against Chesapeake Regional Medical Center and its executives that alleges they allowed an obstetrician and gynecologist to perform unnecessary surgeries on his patients.

In two separate lawsuits filed in Chesapeake City Court since Dec. 29, the plaintiffs — now totaling more than 900 — claim the hospital and its executives are responsible for allowing Dr. Javaid Perwaiz to continue operating there after hospital staff continuously sounded alarms.

“This is the largest civil rights violation in health care in recent U.S. history,” said Anthony DiPierto, co-counsel for the plaintiffs.

Some were told they had cancer to justify the removal of their reproductive organs, when they did not, the lawsuit states. Others were forced to deliver their children prematurely, at times resulting in infant deaths, life-altering injuries and disabilities.

The lawsuit alleges that how staff — including nurses, administrators and physicians — repeatedly elevated their concerns about Perwaiz’s practices to the hospital’s executives, who either did not respond or asked staff to stay quiet.

“Chesapeake Regional Medical Center enabled this abuse, and accountability is long overdue,” said Victoria Wickman, co-counsel for the plaintiffs.

Wickman, who owns a personal injury law firm based in New York, joined the case after a Virginia woman called her with her story.

Perwaiz is serving a 53-year federal prison sentence after a jury found him guilty in 2021 of defrauding private and public insurance programs of over $20.3 million by performing unnecessary procedures, including irreversible sterilizations, on female patients.

In January 2025, Chesapeake Regional was federally indicted on charges of health care fraud and conspiracy related to their consistent granting of surgical privileges to Perwaiz over the course of decades.

The case is pending an appeal filed in January to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Appeals Court by the Chesapeake Hospital Authority — the governing body of the hospital — asking that they consider dismissing the case on the grounds of sovereign immunity.

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