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 Health & Beauty | February 2006 
Clinics No Longer Under the Radar
 Anna Cearley & Sandra Dibble - San Diego Union-Tribune
| | A sign posted by Baja California officials on the door of the 30-bed Hospital Santa Monica in Rosarito Beach says the clinic's operations have been suspended. (David Maung/AP) |
Rosarito Beach, MX – The death last week of Coretta Scott King at an alternative clinic has brought attention to the proliferation of unorthodox treatment programs in Baja California and is raising questions over how they are monitored.
Baja state health officials said yesterday that the clinic where she died – Hospital Santa Monica – evaded detection through misleading information, such as being registered under a different name. Such tactics are often used by clinics that market controversial treatments, said Dr. Francisco Vera González, Baja California's health secretary.
“They start out as a normal clinic and start to practice alternative medicine with promotions in the United States . . . and that's what brings us to this situation,” Vera said.
Baja California health officials are in the process of closing the clinic. They have ordered all patients to leave by Monday.
On its Web site, the 30-bed Hospital Santa Monica describes itself as “the largest wholistic, alternative medicine hospital in North America.” Most patients, it states, “have been told that there is no more hope, all traditional therapies having failed.”
King, the widow of civil-rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., had gone to the clinic to obtain alternative health treatment for advanced ovarian cancer, but she died Monday, apparently of complications, before treatment.
The facility's Web site lists Kurt Donsbach, a Bonita chiropractor, as its director. However, the health secretary said documents showed another man's name. “Unfortunately, there are a lots of people who loan their names,” he said.
Donsbach was not at the clinic yesterday.
Irregularities listed by the health department at the clinic include: unknown substances under Donsbach's name; incomplete medical records; and practice of unconventional treatments.
Under its registered name, Santo Tomás, the clinic was licensed to provide blood transfusions. However, the facility was found to be offering other, unauthorized services, including surgical procedures, X-rays, a clinical laboratory and a pharmacy, according to the Baja California Health Secretariat.
Cesar Castillejos, an assistant administrator at Santa Monica, said staff members had been in contact with Baja California health authorities about a week before King's death to update their records and address concerns.
“They had knowledge of everything,” Castillejos said. “We don't have a permit for surgeries and other things, but we do have some permits that allowed us to work.”
Also this week, a man from the United States – Jason Sears, 38, the singer in a punk-rock band – died while receiving treatment for drug addiction at a Tijuana clinic that uses experimental procedures. Vera said that center wasn't licensed, and it has apparently been abandoned. Mexican authorities attributed his death to other health problems.
This is not the first time Hospital Santa Monica has been in the public eye in recent years. Eugenia Serebryakova, a 76-year-old woman diagnosed with early stages of colon cancer, died in 2001 after seeking treatment there – and her two daughters blame the clinic for her death.
Donsbach told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 2002 that Serebryakova was very ill when she arrived – an assertion the daughters denied. They filed a medical malpractice suit against Donsbach in San Diego Superior Court, but a judge threw it out in 2004.
It was unclear whether Mexican health authorities had taken measures against Santa Monica before this week.
Vera said, “We can't intervene simply for questions of the press. . . . We can't act directly without a complaint.”
Baja California health authorities have previously made efforts to close unlicensed clinics, with mixed success.
“It is very easy for clinics to reopen. It is very difficult to close them down permanently,” said Dr. Alfredo Gruel Culebro, a former Baja California health official who led a sweep against unlicensed alternative clinics in 2001. “Even if they are shut down, they can request a new permit altogether and start operating practically next door.”
Sometimes law enforcement officials on both sides of the border collaborate to shut down alternative clinics. U.S. and Mexican authorities worked together in May 2004 to close a Tijuana clinic, Hospital San Martín, also known as St. Joseph's Hospital, and its Bonita-based operator, American Metabolic Institute.
The two key figures, American Metabolic director William Fry and San Martín director Dr. Geronimo Rubio, have been charged with filing false tax returns and fraudulent billing of U.S. insurance companies. Each is free on $100,000 bond while awaiting trial, scheduled for April.
At Hospital Santa Monica, a modest white compound overlooking the ocean, patients and family members said they were frustrated to hear they would have to leave by Monday.
Susan Purkhiser, 38, whose mother was being treated for cancer, said she believes the closure is due to international pressure after King's death.
“I think our government put pressure on the Mexican government because I believe they are probably quite embarrassed that someone of her stature would think to go out of the U.S. for health care treatment,” Purkhiser said. “But the U.S. health care system leaves us no alternatives, because most of these holistic places are usually shut down in the U.S.”
Staff writers Alex Roth and Onell Soto contributed to this report.
Anna Cearley: (619) 542-4595; anna.cearley@uniontrib.com |
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