Health Care for Native Americans in South Dakota
Written by: Haylee Hunter
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https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2019/08/30/indian-health-service-crossroads-south-dakota-united-states/2162861001/
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Across the United States Native Americans face massive
disparities in health. This issue dates back hundreds of years. In the 1800’s,
the federal government had promised to help fund healthcare for tribes in
exchange for their land. This was not always an agreement, often the tribes
would be treated terribly and forced to give up their land. In 1955, the
government decided to move this responsibility over to a service known today as
the, Indian Health Service which is housed within the Department of Health
Service (HHS). The Indian Health Services is responsible for providing direct
medical health services to members of Native American Tribes as well as the Alaska
Natives. It sounds like it would be something put in place to help these two
groups, but due to tight budgeting it does not run correctly so often Natives
took it upon themselves to handle their own operations.
The New York Times did an analysis and in states that have
Indian Health Service hospitals it is found that death rates for preventable
diseases such as diabetes and liver disease, is three to five times higher for
Native Americans than any other race. Compared to other hospitals their funding
for patients is very low as well. The federal government’s failure to fund the
Indian Health Service is really affecting and pretty much killing two specific South
Dakota tribes known as the Rosebud Sioux and Oglala Lakota as well as other
Native Americans that have moved from reservations. These two tribes are located
next to each other in the southeast corner of South Dakota. Where they live most
the land is undeveloped and is considered one of the poorest counties so
finding qualified doctors to work at the Indian Health Service hospitals was
and is still tough.
One hospital that these tribes would go to is known as the
Sioux San Indian Health Service Hospital located in Rapid City, South Dakota.
In 1898 it was used as a boarding school and in 1933 it was turned into an
actual hospital due to a large number of tuberculosis outbreaks. It is one of
twenty-four hospitals in the nation that is run specifically by the Indian
Health Service. This specific hospital has been investigated many times and has
found that multiple people have died there due to inadequate care or due to false
diagnosis.
There was an article published in 2019 by The New York Times
titled, “Fed Up With Deaths, Native Americans Want to Run Their Own Health”
that touched on a specific issue that took place at the Sioux San Indian Health
Service Hospital in 2016. The article covers a story about a 6-month-old child and
how the hospitals failure to diagnose him almost took his life. The child had
gotten a second upper respiratory infection within a month, but a doctor
working at the hospital assured the mother that it was nothing but the common
cold. Twelve short hours later the child was having a hard time breathing. When
the mother brought the child back to the hospital, she was told there was
nothing they could do to help so the child was taken to a private hospital in
Rapid City, South Dakota. While at the private hospital the child was diagnosed
with a life-threatening case of respiratory syncytial virus and the mother was
told that if she had not brought him in that he would have most likely have died.
This is just one of many cases that have gone wrong in the Sioux San Indian
Health Service Hospital. Things got so bad that in 2017 the Indian Health
Service and Congress shut it down and only an urgent care stayed open.
Things got so bad that surrounding tribes decided to take
things into their own hands by running some hospitals and it really made a difference
and helped the communities. It allowed the tribal authority to possibly reopen
the Sioux San Indian Health Service Hospital but found it would be difficult
without a large amount of funding. This area is very poor and like mentioned
earlier, it is very underdeveloped so getting the funding would be difficult,
so they are trying to increase they money received from Medicare and Medicaid
to this day. This could take years but to the tribes it is worth it in the long
run.
In South Dakota the life expectancy for Native Americans is
57 years old, 24 years less than white residents. This is because they are not
getting the proper health care they were pretty much promised. As of today, the
Sioux San Indian Health Service is still not open, many Native Americans that
would go to that particular hospital must now travel to Rapid City Regional
Hospital which is five miles away from the Sioux San hospital. This would be
fine, but they are usually charged a high amount of money for the service/aid. Native
Americans have no one to rely on if they cannot afford the costly hospital
bill. With proper funding from the Indian Health Service this problem might
completely disappear, but until then it still goes unresolved.
Sources:
New York Times Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/us/politics/native-americans-health-care.html
https://splinternews.com/congress-is-starving-the-indian-health-service-and-sout-1830879285
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