More than 600 women, including Virginia resident Shantel Boone, have been named as plaintiffs in a sweeping lawsuit against Chesapeake Regional Medical Center (CRMC), alleging systemic failures that allowed now-convicted OBGYN Javaid Perwaiz to perform unnecessary and harmful medical procedures for years.
According to a complaint obtained by WTKR News 3, the lawsuit names 604 women who say they were subjected to abusive, medically unnecessary treatments while under the care of Perwaiz, who is currently serving a lengthy federal prison sentence for health care fraud and other crimes.
The plaintiffs are collectively seeking more than $6 billion in damages—$10 million per plaintiff—from CRMC.
In an interview with News 3, Boone said she did not learn that she had undergone a hysterectomy until years later, when another physician reviewed her medical history.
“I do not have a uterus, and I found all that out later going to another physician,” Boone said. “Oh, you don’t have a uterus… oh, that’s what he did.”
Boone explained that Perwaiz initially performed routine annual examinations and later a dilation and curettage (D&C), which he claimed necessitated emergency surgery. That surgery, she said, resulted in an unnecessary hysterectomy—an outcome she did not fully understand at the time.
The procedure had life-altering consequences. Boone said she was thrust into early menopause in her early 30s, experiencing night sweats, hormonal imbalances, depression, and long-term emotional trauma. She also described how the loss of her reproductive ability compounded personal hardship following the breakdown of her marriage.
“When you think about starting over, I don’t have the option to do so if I wanted to,” she said.
The lawsuit alleges that Chesapeake Regional Medical Center failed to properly oversee Perwaiz’s practices and ignored red flags, abnormal treatment patterns, and patient safety concerns because of its professional relationship with him. Plaintiffs argue that these institutional failures enabled years of abuse and irreversible harm.
In response, Chesapeake Regional Healthcare said in a statement to News 3 that Perwaiz was never an employee of the organization.
“His actions, for which he is now serving a lengthy prison sentence, occurred without the knowledge of the organization,” the statement said.
Perwaiz was convicted in 2020 on multiple federal charges, including health care fraud, after prosecutors showed he performed medically unnecessary surgeries—often extreme procedures such as hysterectomies—on hundreds of women without proper consent.
Legal experts say the civil case could become one of the largest medical malpractice and institutional liability lawsuits in Virginia’s history, raising serious questions about hospital oversight, credentialing, and patient protection.
As the case moves forward, plaintiffs like Boone say accountability is about more than money—it is about recognition of harm and systemic reform.
“They’re not suing me for money,” Boone said in the interview, referring to her eviction-like loss of autonomy over her body. “They just took something I can never get back.”
