The greed of a circumciser knows no bounds, as this shocking story from Ontario, Canada, shows.
Dr. Omar Afandi, a pediatrician in Windsor, Ontario, allegedly trolled the electronic medical records of area hospitals to find mothers who had given birth to sons. Then he called the mothers to ask if they wanted to circumcise their boys at his newly opened private clinic, according to CTV News in Windsor.
In other words, Afandi cold-called new moms weeks after they had given birth, women he likely had never met, whose children were not his patients, to ask them to pay out-of-pocket to have the end of their babies’ penises amputated.
“I was mortified, a little bit disturbed,” said Madison DeLong in an interview. She received a call two weeks after her son was born. DeLong told CTV News she has one older intact son and intends to keep her newborn son’s natural penis.
It is not known how any families Afandi called and how many baby boys might have been needlessly cut due to his greed. But 800 mothers were notified by the affected hospitals, Windsor Regional Hospital, Erie Shores HealthCare, and Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, that their records had been accessed without authorization between January and May 2024.
For this alleged infraction, Windsor Regional Hospital revoked Afandi’s hospital privileges and referred the matter to the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. However, the Canadian media made no mention of any disciplinary action regarding Afandi’s unethical solicitation of circumcision fees for a completely medically unnecessary procedure that violates the rights of the child.
Canada’s private pay circumcision con
Canada has national health care, with each province and territory administering its own health insurance plan. None of those plans cover routine infant circumcision. However, there is a thriving private circumcision clinic business, with clinics promising “pain-free” genital cutting.
At Afandi’s private pediatric clinic, WE Kidz Pediatrics, circumcision fees range from $250 for a newborn ages 0 to 28 days to $1,000 for baby from 9 to 12 months. Its website lists “four essential benefits” of circumcision; cultural or religious reasons and personal preferences (of the parents, certainly not the child) are two benefits. The third alleged benefit is reduced risk of urinary tract infections and some sexually transmitted infections, as “suggested” by “some research.” Lastly, the website lists medical necessity as a benefit, but states, “Our office does not perform circumcisions for medical necessity.”
While the regulatory agencies will decide whether or not Afandi accessed hospital records without authorization, the agencies must take the important next step of determining how many families Afandi called and how many baby boys he cut as a result. He should face disciplinary consequences for his unethical actions.
Also, the Canadian Paediatric Society, which does not recommend routine male child circumcision and urges pediatricians to try non-invasive treatment before recommending circumcision, should use this incident to further educate parents that circumcision is medically unnecessary and that they must put the rights of the child over any parental preference for cut genitals.
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