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Gov. Mark R. Warner’s press secretary has told the Virginia Times that in response the newspaper’s inquiries concerning the appointment last year of Dr. Gopinath Jadhav by Warner to the state board of medicine, that her offi ce has not been able to verify a list of allegations about Jadhav’s ethics, practice and his af- fi liation with Southside Regional Medical Center the night of a tragic fi re 10 years ago.

“We have not responded (directly) because we have not been able to verify any of the allegations,” said Ellen Qualls.

“We [referred] the newspaper to the state board of medicine, because that’s what the board is for. That’s their job.”

A source contends Warner knew of the allegations because they were outlined to him in correspondence sent nearly three years ago by way of registered mail.

The source said “Warner’s offi ce was asked to cooperate to help interview these people (the doctors), some of which involved Medicare and Medicaid fraud. These involved the care of thousands of patients and involved thousands of Medicaid and Medicare dollars. The attorney general’s offi ce also knew of the allegations but never did an investigation.”

Dr. William Harp, director of the Virginia Board of Medicine, was contacted a couple months ago about Jadhav serving on the board in light of the allegations. But Harp had responded at that time he was unaware of any negativity surrounding Jadhav.

Harp said again last week that there was no public information on fi le at his offi ce to implicate Jadhav in any of the allegations.

“The only thing I can say is that there’s no such notice on order (to look into allegations) for Dr. Jadhav,” said Harp. “I could confi rm or deny if there was any such information, but there is none.”

Nursing sources who worked with Jadhav, said during a taped phoned conversation earlier this week that Jadhav often performed medical procedures too quickly – usually without doing a thorough examination fi rst, colonoscopies in less than fi ve minutes and biopsies of the ileocecal valve. This kind of thing, according to the source, resulted in the doctor allegedly engaged in billing to increase his billing revenue – including Medicaid and Medicare for unnecessary procedures.

The source said other doctors would subsequently discover tumors and other fi ndings” that Jadhav failed to diagnose. “Other doctors have picked up problems with colons after he’s done them,” said the source.

Alzenia Mayfi eld, president of the local NAACP, said Sunday that her family also had its share of problems with Jadhav. According to Mayfi eld, he did a colonoscopy on her sister and missed the fact that she had cancer. However, within four days, another doctor had diagnosed the cancer, she said.

The former source said the hospital had become a safe haven for Medicaid and Medicare fraud for physicians like Jadhav. “These are blatant examples. Despite these issues being brought up, the hospital didn’t do anything. He missed prime cancerous signs. He missed lesions and tumors that have resulted in high morbidity and high mortality, but he’s still practicing there.”

The source said Jadav has become so much in the habit if doing biopsies that are not needed that hospital staff nicknamed him “Lipoma.”

Doctors contacted at other hospitals, including Virginia Commonwealth Medical Center and at the University of Virginia, said it wasn’t normal to biopsy [an ileocecal valve] during a colonoscopy.

“The IC valve always looks lipomatus, but it doesn’t need to be biopsied each time,” said one of the doctors.

“No one biopsies like that. In practice we’re trained not to do that.”

But, said the source,”Jadhav has been doing this for years to increase his insurance billing reimbursements which costs thousands of dollars to insurance companies and Medicaid and Medicare. This has caused concern to other doctors and nurses because the extra biopsies are unnecessary on thousands of patients over a 10-yer period. Mr. Fikse knows this fraud.”

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