Abuse Survivors, Med Students Demand Patients Be Notified as 300+ More Sue Robert Hadden, Columbia

On Wednesday, hundreds of medical students and sexual assault survivors of former university obstetrician Robert Hadden protested at Columbia University’s campus calling for accountability during the inauguration ceremony of the university’s first woman president. We speak with medical students and survivors demanding Columbia take action to notify all former patients of Hadden about his previous sexual assault convictions by the November 23 deadline of New York’s Adult Survivors Act. “Wouldn’t you want to know if your OB-GYN had sexually assaulted 500 other patients?” asks survivor and activist Evelyn Yang, who has been sharing her experience publicly since 2020. We also speak to the attorney suing Columbia University and its affiliated hospitals on behalf of some 300 more patients who say they were sexually assaulted by Hadden over two decades while Columbia shielded the sexual predator. Anthony T. DiPietro filed a new lawsuit against the university and its affiliated hospitals earlier this week. “Columbia knew from the beginning,” DiPietro says of Hadden’s abuse and its subsequent cover-up. Survivors, he continues, “shouldn’t be having to carry this burden around with them for their entire lives.”

Transcript: democracynow.org

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