Written by: Maggie Hayden
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| Source: https://www.rollcall.com/news/policy/never-ending-crisis-indian-health-service |
“It is hard to talk about a middle ground
for something that is a fundamental right.”
― Teri Reynolds, The Obama Syndrome:
Surrender at Home, War Abroad
American
Indians have an average life expectancy of 5.5 years less than other races in
the United States today. Native Americans are continuing to die at higher rates
than Americans from assault, suicide, respiratory diseases, accidents, and
diabetes. These lower rates of life expectancy and high rates of death are due
to poverty, low education, discrimination, and poor social conditions.
Native
Americans are 50% more likely to suffer from substance abuse, 60% more likely
to commit suicide, twice as likely to smoke and die from childbirth, three
times as likely to die from diabetes, and five time likely to die from
tuberculosis. The Indian Health Service provides federal health services to
Native Americans in the United States. The president called for a $300 million
cut for the IHS in his budget proposal for 2018. It was later revised a year
later to increase the overall budget by $400 million, which is still not enough
for a highly underfunded agency.
An example of the
problems the Indian Health Service faces is in South Dakota in 2015. At an IHS
hospital, a baby was born in a bathroom. In another case, a heart attack victim
was forced to wait 90 minutes to receive care. The emergency room was closed
for six months. A nurse failed to take the blood glucose levels of a diabetic
man who had not had insulin in days. He died the next day after receiving
proper care far too late.
The
Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services told IHS it would no longer pay for
acute services for Medicare beneficiaries. “It’s unacceptable to have CMS
decertifying hospitals when there’s nothing within a hundred miles in any
direction in some of these places,” one citizen said. IHS funds 46 hospitals
with most of them having less than 50 beds. There are ~20% fewer doctors than
there should be. The facilities need $500 million in repairs.
There
are many problems involving Native Americans and the healthcare and treatment
they receive. They are severely impoverished in terms of quality of care they
are given. There needs to be more money given to the Indian Health Service in
order to make the changes it needs to improve the quality of life of the Native
people. Another option is to fight until there is mandatory funding to the IHS,
like many other government programs. Healthcare is a right, not a privilege.
Every single person should be required to get the care they deserve, especially
Native Americans that have got treated poorly for hundreds of years by the US
people.
Every human being
deserves it.”
― Howard Zinn, Marx in Soho: A Play on
History
Sources
https://www.ihs.gov/newsroom/factsheets/disparities/
https://www.rollcall.com/news/policy/never-ending-crisis-indian-health-service
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