SUFFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — A lawsuit against the Bon Secours Surgery Center at Harbour View ended in a confidential settlement Thursday. The plaintiff in the case had alleged negligence in the center’s hiring and credentialing of a doctor, Javaid Perwaiz.
Perwaiz was found guilty of 52 counts of health care fraud and related crimes in November 2020.
The trial, which began Monday, was expected to end Friday.
The plaintiff had been a patient of Perwaiz’s in 2019 and alleged in court that he performed an unnecessary procedure on her. She testified that he gave her incomplete information about test results in order to convince her to go forward with the operation.
The 10 On Your Side previously investigated Perwaiz and his long history of wrongdoing, in-depth.
Perwaiz practiced as an OB/GYN for almost four decades.
In 1984, he was censured by the state board of medicine for failing to keep adequate records and having a sexual relationship with a patient.
A decade later, in 1996, he pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and tax evasion. His license to practice medicine was temporarily suspended.
In his 2007 application to work for and be licensed at the Harborview surgery center, he repeatedly concealed or played down the facts of his past.
The center’s managers apparently failed to investigate further. Perwaiz was also attempting to become a partner (i.e. Shareholder) of the business, which was co-owned by his previous employer, Maryview.
It was this failure – to investigate, to do due diligence, to protect the center’s patients – that the plaintiff’s attorneys argued constituted a form of negligence that should be paid for.
The center, they said, licensed Perwaiz and kept him employed despite years of insufficient licensing paperwork in order to make money.
One of the plaintiff’s witnesses had previously managed a similar surgery center. He testified that they’ve “exploded” to the point of now carrying out 50% of surgical operations. He described this type of business model as one focused on generating profits.
The trial was almost derailed and declared a mistrial after the same witness, under questioning by the defense, mentioned Perwaiz’s 2020 convictions while on the stand. Both sides had agreed, in pretrial hearings, to keep the jury from learning of his more recent crimes, in order to not unfairly color their view of Perwaiz.
On Wednesday afternoon, after the plaintiff rested, the defense again pushed to scrap the case – arguing, in part, that a negligent credentialing lawsuit had never gone to trial in Virginia and questioned the legality of doing so.
After the judge shot the motion down, the opposing sides discussed scheduling for the rest of the week and adjourned.
When 10 On Your Side arrived in the courtroom Thursday morning, only a single attorney’s aide was present, packing up the last of the defense’s files and computers. The jury had been released.
The case was to be determined in confidential settlement hearings in the future.