BEND — The region’s largest health care system is being sued for allegations that one of its physicians inappropriately touched a female patient in 2020.

A woman identified by her initials, M.H., filed the $1 million complaint for sexual abuse and battery against St. Charles Heath System.

Oncologist Dr. Theodore Braich is named as a defendant.

Calls to St. Charles Bend were not returned Friday, July 16.

“Dr. Braich knew that plaintiff trusted him and exploited the opportunity that arose from his training, status, employment, and agency in order to touch plaintiff in places and ways, including with his pelvis and genitals, and on her buttocks, in which she would not ordinarily allow a stranger to touch her,” the lawsuit states.

The alleged abuse took place April 15, 2020, while the doctor was performing an exam of the woman’s spleen.

“Plaintiff felt him rub his pelvic bone and below against her hand,” reads the six-page complaint filed Friday morning, July 16, in Deschutes County Circuit Court. “At the completion of the examination, as the plaintiff was putting on her coat to leave, Defendant Dr. Braich rushed toward her, touched her buttocks in a manner unnecessarily tactile and intrusive, while attempting to assist her in redressing.”

Shortly after the incident, the woman reported the alleged abuse to “agents” of St. Charles, according to the suit.

She did not contact police or the district attorney’s office, according to her attorney, Mark McDougal.

She later received a letter from St. Charles’ patient advocacy division stating it had conducted a thorough investigation of her complaint, including an interview with Braich, the lawsuit reads.

The woman suffers from myelofibrosis, a rare blood cancer, and the alleged abuse resulted in anxiety about further medical encounters, which could risk worsening her condition, the lawsuit states.