Diabetes: Clinic Funding Crucial

If there were doubts about the critical need to use tobacco lawsuit settlement funds in Orange County for health care, skeptics need only look at the serious increase in diabetes among the county’s low-income residents--and their problems in getting the care they so desperately need.

Diabetes doesn’t discriminate. It strikes people of all ages, ethnic backgrounds and income levels. But experts say the poor and the Latino population in the county have been at risk disproportionately.

It is also difficult to pin down exactly how widespread the illness is because so many victims in the county are uninsured and untreated. Many others haven’t even been diagnosed because they can neither afford to see a private physician nor get into the overburdened and underfunded community clinics.

Directors of the clinics say the problem is critical because there is no county hospital or county-supported clinic to help them. All of this leads to more complications for the victims and the community.

Orange County has to do more to support its community clinics and maintain public health. More help could, and should, be coming from the Legislature, where a bill by Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar) seeks to increase state funding to primary-care clinics from $21 million to $60 million.

Some county supervisors and health care advocates recently were in conflict on how to spend tobacco settlement money. This is one example of a health care need that deserves far more attention.