Federal authorities have brought to light the case of a Tennessee gynecologist who allegedly conducted medical procedures on numerous women using unsterilized equipment.
On July 8, Dr. Sanjeev Kumar, trained at the Mayo Clinic and specializing in gynecologic oncology, received a 20-year prison sentence followed by a two-year supervised release. This was confirmed by a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee.
Earlier this year, a Memphis jury found Dr. Kumar guilty of 18 counts involving the tampering of medical devices, alongside 16 counts of mislabeling these devices, and six counts of committing healthcare fraud.
Kumar was operating the Poplar Avenue Clinic, where prosecutors claim he performed over 15,000 hysteroscopies with biopsies using contaminated instruments on patients from Medicare and Medicaid, spanning from September 2019 to April 2024.
This procedure involves inserting a hysteroscope—commonly referred to as a telescope—into the vagina and cervix to investigate the uterus and identify issues such as endometrial cancer.
According to prosecutors, Kumar reused single-use hysteroscopes and graspers that were supposed to be discarded and failed to properly clean reusable hysteroscopes according to manufacturers’ instructions before using them on subsequent patients.
“The single use devices, even if they had been correctly reprocessed,” noted the press release, “had to be labeled as such; and Kumar did not label them.”
Kumar billed more than $41 million for the procedures, receiving more than $4.8 million from Medicare and Medicaid alone, prosecutors said.
Former patients who attended the sentencing hearing told ABC 24 they are traumatized from Kumar’s care.
“I’m still in pain,” Quita Wherry told the outlet. “The problem has come back. There’s still no findings of cancer, but the issue is still there. The pain is still there.”
“No doctor will touch me,” she continued, “after they find out that I’ve been to Dr. Kumar.”
After he was found guilty in January, Kumar told reporters that the investigation was “overwhelming.”
“[I] always did the right thing for the patient,” he said, according to ABC 24. “The patient comes in, they tell you the symptoms, and you do the best you can.”
But prosecutors said Kumar was concerned with profits, not patient safety.
“He was motivated by greed, disregarded clear medical risks, and caused significant physical and psychological harm to his victim-patients,” US Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee D. Michael Dunavant said in the press release. “No punishment is enough to achieve justice in this horrific case, but we hope that this 20-year sentence will send a strong message of deterrence while holding Kumar accountable for his crimes.”
A hearing to determine restitution is scheduled for October 2. Kumar’s legal team plans to appeal, according to WREG.