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O'siyo Brothers and Sisters!
Grandmothers and Grandfathers lives not worth
84 cents a day!
Last issue this editorial space was devoted to the need for the
Legislative and Executive branches to get off their political high
horses,
and fund and update Indian Health Care. In that editorial I promised
this issue would focus on the IHS, itself. It is not a pretty vision.
The Indian Health Service (IHS) began on July 1, 1955, a year after the
transfer of Native American health services from the Bureau of Indian
Affairs (BIA) to the Public Health Service. The federal trust
relationship with American Indian tribes is based on numerous treaty
rights and agreements that include medical services and physicians made
available to Indians. Along with the obligations it assumed, the IHS
also brought the history of mismanagement that had plagued it's
predecessor.
Among the many shames that can be laid at the feet of the IHS is an over
twenty year span of involuntary and coerced sterilizations that were
finally documented in a 1978 GAO report. Many of the findings were
glossed over and buried in doublespeak, but this bureaucratic genocide
is a fact of history that cannot be denied.
Many Indians have reported going to the same IHS clinic with the same
ailment over a period of several months and receiving a totally
different treatment program each time. Again, these disturbing facts
have been documented in more than one GAO report.
One of my elders, a former IHS nurse, provided the following insight:
- The IHS will not send patients who have
disease processes out on referral to private Docs either. Say,
someone has a brain tumor, needs a neurologist to operate...I've
never seen anyone working for IHS who could operate on specialty
problems.
- Their formulary has been out of date for
30 years. Patients get outdated medications.
- Doctors working for IHS are either
licensed for institutional practice only (being foreign and unable
to pass US medical boards) or paying off a contractual debt from
having borrowed money to go to medical school.
- Indians have the highest rate, per
capita, for Diabetes. Yet, none of the new insulins which are fast
acting and more effective, are available for Indian patients. None
of the treatments for diabetic neuropathy are available, which is
frequently a problem and results in loss of limbs unless treated
with expensive E-Stim treatments to promote circulation. (As a side
note I get these and Medicare pays for them but IHS won't)
- Indians have, per capita, the highest
rate of suicide in the US, yet mental health services are sparse, if
existing at all, for most tribes. Even so, Board Certified
Psychiatrists do not work there.
- IHS has often advertised through private
headhunter corporations for Nurses to work on the reservations
paying them outlandish salaries, thereby making private corporations
rich when placing medical personnel on the rez. However, payment to
tribally hired medical workers is disgustingly low. Tribes have been
forced to barely train people, usually women with the training of a
nurse's aid, to run clinics in rural areas. They are not able nor
trained well enough to give more than band-aid care. God help anyone
in a rural rez who has a heart attack or serious trauma.
- There is no follow-up care. Patients are
just turned loose with medications (3 months worth at a time) and
told to come back in 3 months. No one calls the patient to see if
there are any side effects.
As an example, some Lakota elders were given
prescriptions for Coumadin (blood thinner) and aspirins. This is a
deadly combination. Yet, there were no warning notes nor a follow-up to
verify results. These elders might as well have been given the rat
poison Warfarin, that kills by thinning the blood to the point that any
internal injury leads to internal hemorrhaging and death. In fact, some
rat poisons contain the aforementioned Coumadin, instead of Warfarin.
IMPORTANT FACTS:
ALL Indian patients should DEMAND to see the Patient Advocate (each
hospital has one) and ask to file a formal complaint if at any time they
are disrespected, if their treatment is not explained to them or if they
are not told the side effects of their medications. Too many Indian
people are afraid to do that because they are afraid of the IHS medical
staff. They need to stand up. You are entitled to proper treatment. You
have a right to insist on it. Do not hesitate to file a formal complaint
(they hate that) about the inept care or disrespect you have received.
Did you know when someone turns 65 and is on Medicare, IHS takes your
card info and they BILL Medicare for your treatment? YEP! IHS is getting
Medicare money. Elders, unfortunately, do not realize with Medicare they
can go see private Doctors. You have rights. Exercise them.
The abuses and neglect will continue as long as Indian patients meekly
accept the pitiful crumbs they are being thrown.
Dohiyi Ani Oginalii
Gary Smith (*,*)
wotanging@bellsouth.net
P. O. Box 672168 (`-') gars@nanews.org
Marietta, GA 30006, U.S.A. ===w=w===
http://www.nanews.org
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