'There's no closure:' Victim of Mission doctor convicted of misdiagnosing thousands of patients dealing with multiple health issues
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In May, a Mission doctor was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in connection with a healthcare fraud and international money laundering scheme.
Jorge Zamora-Quezada was found guilty of multiple healthcare fraud charges in 2020. Prosecutors said he filed $240 million in fraudulent claims to healthcare programs to administer unnecessary treatments, including medicine commonly used to treat cancer, to at least 10,000 patients he falsely diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and other degenerative diseases.
Zamora-Quezada had been in custody since 2018, and his sentencing was the end of his trial. But for many of his former patients, they’re still living with the consequences of his actions.
READ ABOUT JORGE ZAMORA QUEZADA'S SENTENCING HERE
“It’s almost like the story is forgotten, but he damaged thousands of patients,” Miranda Hinojosa said.
Hinojosa became a patient of Zamora-Quezada when she was 11 years old.
“I had started to get a lot of chronic fatigue and body pain that I didn’t have before,” Hinojosa said. “Since my mom had lupus, I started to go to Dr. Zamora because he was the only one in the Valley really that was a rheumatologist."
Zamora-Quezada falsely diagnosed Hinojosa with rheumatoid arthritis, which she said led to years of unnecessary medication.
“I was put on lots of medicines, but mainly it was methotrexate — which is low dose chemo medication — every week for 10 years," Hinojosa said.
The medication deteriorated Hinojosa’s body and damaged her central nervous system, leading to a diagnosis of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS.) The condition causes several heart issues and dizziness and fatigue.
Now at 32 years old, Hinojosa said she can’t even get out of bed due to her condition.
“Too much movement causes her tachycardia, her heart, to go off,” Hinojosa’s mom — Iris — said. “Her blood pressure, she can get lethargic, it’s just a bunch of stuff.”
Hinojosa said she and her mom were in the courtroom when Zamora-Quezada was sentenced.
“It’s just hard knowing that this was the because of medicine, somebody purposely poisoning you for so many years and looking you in the face,” Hinojosa said. “[The sentence] is a slap on the wrist."
As part of his sentence, Zamora-Quezada received seven years of credit for time served, and is eligible for a sentence reduction for good behavior.
Zamora-Quezada was also ordered to pay $28 million in restitution to the insurance programs he defrauded, but not to his victims.
“Nobody got justice. Nobody got restitution. It’s like it never happened,” Hinojosa said. “His life is not gonna be hard like everybody else is. There’s no closure.”
Watch the video above for the full story.
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