BOERNE, Texas – A Boerne clinic, Hope of Life Alternative Treatment Center, is still seeing patients despite a claim filed by a former patient stating that the doctor they were seeing there, Cat Hunter, is not a doctor.
"She presented herself as a doctor who was a stage IV cancer survivor herself who had cured herself of stage IV cancer,” said former patient Ann Hollister.
Hollister was in remission from her cancer for 13 years. When her cancer returned, it was worse than before.
"Seventy five percent of us die within five years," she said. "Unfortunately when you are stage IV chemo is not very effective."
Hollister said desperation drove her to seek out Hope of Life Alternative Treatment Center. She says she spent $15,000 out of her own pocket within just a few months. Her business and life partner, Barry Genaske, researched Hunter and her practice and uncovered a number of things, including that Hunter's pricing was exponentially more expensive than what similar clinics in California charge cancer patients for alternative treatment.
Genaske crunched some numbers, "Doctors in California charge between $140 and $150 a treatment. She was charging $650," he said.
"She stole another doctor's identity,” Hollister said. “Barry's the one who tracked everything down.”
Despite a Boerne police search warrant that was executed on May 6 at the Alternative Treatment Center and despite investigations by both Boerne police and the DEA, as of Wednesday afternoon, Hunter's practice remained open for business.
"How many patients does she get to harm or injure before someone shuts her down? She infected my mediport (a type of catheter). I had to have it removed. I had to have a PIC line (peripherally inserted catheter) put in,” Hollister said. “I could have died."