Whistleblower: Texas Children’s Hospital Secretly Providing Transgender Care Services for Minors
A Texas doctor blowing the whistle on transgender care for minors has been charged with obtaining confidential patient information illegally on patients from the nation’s largest pediatric hospital. The private information came from patients of the facility that were not under his care as a surgeon. Upon attaining the HIPAA related information, Dr. Ethan Haim shared it with a conservative political activist.
Federal prosecutors have accused the Dallas based doctor, who is a former resident of the hospital, of sharing the personal information with “intent to cause malicious harm” to the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. Haim pleaded not guilty on Monday June 17th in a federal court to four counts of wrongfully obtaining individually identifiable health information.
CBS reports that the indictment alleges that in 2023 he asked to reactivate his login there to access information on pediatric patients not under his care, including names, attending physicians and treatment codes. He then turned over the information to a media contact. More recently he has been making the rounds for media interviews.
Haim admitted publicly that he is the person who shared the information about patients at the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. The information then got published by Christopher Rufo, a conservative political activist, in a report that the hospital was providing transgender care for minors in secret. Transgender care for minors was legal in Texas at the time, but in 2022 the hospital stated that gender-affirming therapies would stop.
In Spetember 2023, Texas lawmakers banned transgender care for minors, but that law is now being challenged in court. CBS also reports that at least 25 states have adopted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors with most of those states facing lawsuit challenges as well.
Haim faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. He was released on $10,000 bond. He declared outside of the courthouse to “have maintained from day one that I have done nothing wrong. We’re going to fight this tooth and nail, stand up for whistleblowers everywhere.” Hospital officials have claimed that their doctors have always provided care within the law.
