Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, February 21, 2010.

Vanessa Sivadge, a former nurse at Texas Children’s Hospital, on Monday told WORLD that after two years of litigation and intense stress, the hospital’s settlement finally cleared her name. The Texas Children’s Hospital’s settlement with her and the Justice Department was finalized last week, with the hospital saying that going ahead, it was focusing its resources on life-saving care and discoveries. The agreement ended an investigation into Sivadge’s whistleblower testimony that the hospital illegally used state funding to provide gender transition procedures for minors. She lost her nurse job after coming forward and now leads a child-advocacy and parental rights organization, Protecting Texas Children.

As part of the settlement, the hospital must permanently remove statements in which it labeled Sivadge a liar and a disgruntled employee, she said. The hospital also agreed to stop all gender-transition procedures on children. Instead, it must open a detransition clinic this fall and make all detransition treatments free for the first five years. The hospital also agreed to fire five physicians allegedly involved in providing so-called gender transitions, and will pay $10 million to resolve both federal and state Medicaid fraud claims.

About $2 million of the settlement money will go to Sivadge as whistleblower compensation, she said. Sivadge told WORLD that she was thankful for the compensation, but no amount of...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMilwFBVV95cUxPUHc1MzNsSDBWVGFYRmtidzhl...