Nonprofit Group Battling Medical Misinformation

A new nonprofit organization plans to step up a campaign encouraging Orange County immigrants to use legitimate doctors instead of backdoor clinics.

The Orange County Safe Healthcare Coalition last month obtained nonprofit status that will allow it to seek state and federal funds.

The coalition has advised the Safe Healthcare Project of the Orange County Health Care Agency since 1999. It has met once a month to advise the county as it combats widespread illegal use of prescription medicines by Latino immigrants.

The coalition was formed after three deaths in the last three years, of a baby, a toddler and a teenager who received fraudulent medical care and took prescription medicines illegally.

It hopes to increase campaigns in immigrant communities, said Rocio Nunez-Magdaleno, the vice chairwoman.

In addition, the group will try to make doctors aware of cultural differences in medicine.

“We want doctors to know what our people think. There is a barrier. This is a folk medicine tradition and it may not be inappropriate,” she said.

For example, doctors who don’t know about the widespread use of certain teas to help common health problems may appear unknowledgeable to some immigrant patients, who then seek alternate healers familiar with their traditions, she said. The goal is to prevent this from occurring, she said.

Patients also need to learn to treat simple problems at home before seeking out alternative healers and doctors.

Nunez-Magdaleno said the new nonprofit status of the group is a key to that battle. “We have to get our message out. Sometimes it is as simple as not knowing what to do when your child has a fever.”

Joe Vargas, program supervisor of the Health Care Agency’s Safe Healthcare Project, said he welcomes the expanded role of the coalition. His project provides health education training to professionals and community groups to encourage use of legitimate health care services. It also has promoted a Spanish-language advertising campaign in bus shelters.

“We are very supportive of them and we always have been and will continue to be,” Vargas said. “We have very similar goals. We have the same mission. The more they do, the better.”