Man's death highlights immigrants' faith in 'healers'

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Roberto Caceres was desperate. Two years after developing a rash that caused his legs to swell and his skin to peel, he sought treatment from a woman he believed could use traditional remedies to cure what modern medicine could not.

Caceres, 54, was on the brink of losing his job as an air-conditioning repairman because the pills prescribed by doctors had failed to cure his affliction and he found it difficult to work.

As a last resort, family members say, the Salvadoran immigrant turned to a faith healer. During his second visit, on Oct. 28, the faith healer ordered an assistant to inject Caceres with a mix of vitamins and steroids, police say. Caceres had an immediate reaction and died that day.

Reina Isabel Chavarria, 48, and her assistant, Margarita Montes, 28, were charged with involuntary manslaughter and practicing medicine without a license.

Unlicensed practitioners

Caceres' death highlights a practice among many immigrants in Southern California who turn to unlicensed practitioners because they are poor and uninsured, prefer the type of care they had in their homeland or, if they entered the country illegally, fear having their immigration status checked at mainstream clinics.

The Los Angeles Police Department formed a task force to crack down on the practice, but after two years, the phony doctors and pharmacists still flourish.

Arrests at back room clinics catering to Southern California's Hispanic, Russian and Asian communities are on the rise, task force officials say. So far this year, officers have arrested 56 people for illegal pharmaceutical sales.

Chavarria operated a "very profitable" business, seeing at least 20 customers a day, said Detective Al Aldaz.

"The people she deals with come from deep Mexico or El Salvador in the hills. There is not a lot of medical treatment available," Aldaz said. "They believe in the supernatural."

Chavarria refused to comment and would not provide the name of her attorney. She and her assistant face up to 12 years in prison if convicted, District Attorney spokesman Sandi Gibbons said.

At a wake for Caceres at his home in Santa Ana, he was remembered for helping to raise money to send wheelchairs and an ambulance back to his home town.

"When I am alone, the memories come back," Noemi Caceres, 50, said by telephone from El Salvador, where she returned this month to bury her husband. "Right now, I feel as if he is still in Santa Ana. When I get there, it will be difficult for me."

Life-threatening rash

Caceres, a coffee farmer, came to the United States in 1980 to seek a better life.

But the life he built was threatened by the rash. Four dermatologists had unable to treat or diagnose the problem.

He was sent home from work because his constant scratching was considered unsightly, and he had been told he would lose his job and health coverage in November.

Caceres remembered that a faith healer in El Salvador cured him of back pain with a regimen of fruit juices and prayer. When one of his doctors muttered something about his infection being "diabolic," he believed it was time to seek an alternative remedy, said his son, Luis.

Turning to natural healer

He turned to Chavarria, whose powers as a natural healer had been publicized on a nationally syndicated, Spanish-language radio show. Chavarria charged Caceres $310 on his first visit and advised him to dig a hole "where nobody could see him" and bury himself for two hours a day, police said.

He found a shady spot under a lemon tree in his back yard and followed the unusual prescription, his son said. The cold earth aggravated his condition, however, and in a week he returned to the faith healer.

During Caceres' second visit, Montes gave him two injections, police said. Investigators believe the shots contained vitamin B-12 and B-Methasone, a steroid used to treat allergies.

Caceres was pronounced dead shortly afterward. The results of toxicology tests are pending.

With phony medical clinics thriving in immigrant communities throughout Los Angeles, officials have launched a series of Spanish-language television ads telling people that they can instead turn to low-cost medical clinics.

"None of this gets reported unless something drastic happens," Aldaz said. "They operate in the culture or under the umbrella of the neighborhood where people believe in what they are doing."