‘Retaliation’: Nurse who blew whistle on child sex-change program says Texas Children’s fired her

Former Texas Children’s Hospital nurse Vanessa Sivadge says that she has been terminated after blowing the whistle on the hospital’s alleged use of Texas Medicaid to cover attempted sex-changes for children.

Texas Children’s has denied that it used Texas Medicaid to cover cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers for minors, as Sivadge has alleged. The hospital did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s multiple requests for comment about the alleged termination on Monday afternoon.

In a written statement to journalist Chris Rufo, Sivadge shared that she submitted a religious accommodation request to her supervisor at the hospital on May 31, asking to be transferred out of the endocrinology clinic.

The day after Rufo had published Sivadge’s allegations against the hospital, in early June, the hospital allegedly called Sivadge and put her on leave citing “things shared publicly”—which she believes was a reference to the story—and her request to transfer.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND’s Email News Alerts!

“This past Friday on August 16, TCH fired me effective immediately,” she shared. “This is unlawful for two reasons: it is retaliation for my coming forward with information on TCH’s egregious pattern of deception and Medicaid fraud, and this action also illegally disregarded my request to transfer due to my belief that these procedures bring irreversible harm and lifelong regret to children confused about their sex.”

“I would like to challenge this in court, but my legal fees are mounting,” she added. “I am relying on the public who is generously supporting my legal defense through donations to my Give Send Go. Thank you for your continued support telling my story, which is saving children’s lives, and encouraging other whistleblowers like me to come forward.”

Rufo shared the letter in an “X” post, where he linked to Sivadge’s “Give Send Go” campaign. The campaign, which appears to have been started about 12 days ago, had reached about $23,000 as of 2 p.m. on Monday.

In a June statement, Texas Children’s emphasized that it “never condones any criminal act.”

“We welcome additional information that may help our internal investigation,” the hospital added in the statement. “It goes without saying that if we uncover any rogue or unauthorized criminal activity, we will take swift action to correct the issue.”

“To reiterate,” the statement continued, “our internal investigation to-date has found no basis to substantiate any allegations of Medicaid fraud. All services provided by Texas Children’s were permitted according to Medicaid billing and payment guidelines that were in effect at the time care was provided.”

Texas Children’s has also drawn increasing attention in recent weeks as the Justice Department targets whistleblower Eithan Haim, who exposed the hospital allegedly secretly performing attempted gender-transition procedures on children.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas announced in mid-June that it had indicted 34-year-old Haim for “obtaining protected individual health information for patients that were not under his care and without authorization.” If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 maximum possible fine.

Texas Children’s had publicly said in March 2022 that it would no longer perform attempted gender-transition procedures on kids. In May 2023, Haim provided Rufo with documents showing that Texas Children’s was “lying to the public about the existence of its transgender-medicine program,” as Haim later revealed in an explosive piece in January of this year.

“I worked at the hospital as a surgery resident, and I knew that these interventions didn’t stop,” Haim wrote. “Three days after the announcement, a surgeon implanted a hormone device in a healthy 11-year-old girl for gender dysphoria. Over the next year, the frequency of these procedures increased, and potentially hundreds more children received hormone interventions for gender dysphoria.”

Haim told The Free Press that before he gave Rufo any of the documents, he made sure that the patients’ names and identifying information were redacted (to protect himself from violating federal laws and to protect the patients’ privacy).

The very next day after Rufo published Haim’s (then anonymous) May 2023 expose, the Texas Legislature banned these experimental gender-transition attempts for minors.

A month later, two federal agents came to Haim’s home to speak with him. They told him that he was a “potential target” of an investigation into federal criminal violations related to medical records.

“It was clear to me that this was a political investigation. I refused to submit to an interview without an attorney,” he wrote in City Journal.

After that, Haim went public with his story.

“To these agents, the prosecutor, and their political handlers, I was a criminal because I had told the truth,” he wrote.

“None of this mattered, I believe, because I had exposed a truth that threatened their ideology,” Haim added. “This was the reason for their frightening show of force. The intent was to intimidate me. If I agreed to stay silent, though, I would be legitimizing their lies and sacrificing the truth. Instead, I decided to fight back.”

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!