This letter concerns the plight of the Lakota Sioux Native Americans who are ravaged by a systemic health care problem on the reservation. A friend of mine is involved in the efforts to bring greater attention to the hardships they face daily.
Concerned
Catholics of the Oglala Lakota Nation
Post Office Box 140
Oglala, South Dakota 57764
7 July 2013
The Acting Chief Executive
Officer
Pine Ridge Hospital
Post Office Box 1201
East Highway 18
Pine Ridge, South Dakota
57770
Dear Sir:
We, the undersigned
Concerned Catholics of the Oglala Lakota Nation, write to express a grave concern: Pine Ridge Hospital, Pine
Ridge, South Dakota, administered by the Department of Health and Human
Services through the Indian Health Service, has failed utterly to provide meaningful
comprehensive care for its adult patients—and has contributed to abysmal
life-expectancy statistics for Oglala Lakota women and men living on the Pine
Ridge Reservation.
On 8 March
2000, while addressing the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Dr. Michael
Trujillo, who was then Assistant Surgeon General and Director of the Indian
Health Service, observed that the mission of the Indian Health Service is “to
raise the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health of American Indians
and Alaska Natives to the highest level.”
He added that the goal of the Indian Health Service is “to assure that comprehensive, culturally acceptable
personal and public health services are available and accessible to the service
population. He affirmed:
“Our foundation is to uphold the Federal government’s obligation to promote healthy American
Indian and Alaska Native people.” This obligation is enshrined in the Snyder
Act of 1921 and the Indian Health Care Improvement Act of 1976, Public Law
94-437. The Snyder Act authorized appropriations for “the relief of distress
and the conservation of health” of Native peoples. The explicit intent of the Indian
Health Care Improvement Act was to fulfill the federal government’s responsibility
to provide “the highest possible
health status to Indians and to provide existing Indian health services with all resources necessary to effect that policy.”
The promises
of this legislation contrast sharply with the reality on the Pine Ridge
Reservation. Narcotic analgesics, especially hydrocodone, flow from the
hospital’s pharmacy like a toxic river, at times depleting the pharmacy’s
monthly drug allotment before month’s end. Patients complaining of chronic pain, often
addicted to narcotic analgesics (because of poor continuity of care) or
collecting them for diversion, flood practitioners’ schedules each day and
prevent the more seriously ill elders from receiving needed care for conditions
like type 2 diabetes, chronic essential hypertension, coronary artery disease, and
chronic liver and kidney disease. Patients who need to be treated by specialists
and subspecialists fail to receive that level of care while the hospital’s Contract
Health Department—pleading helplessness because of limited funding—denies
patients, including the elderly, needed resources for “comprehensive care.”
Competent practitioners—frustrated by impotent, constantly-changing leadership
and harassed by patients seeking narcotics—leave the institution, and are replaced
by locum tenens nurse practitioners
and physician assistants who are unable to provide adequate continuity of care.
The emergency room sags under the weight of too many patients and the imminent threat
of heavy sanctions for incompetence exposed by the Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services. This is hardly the “comprehensive care” proclaimed by the government’s
sign prominently displayed outside the hospital. This is hardly the road to
providing the Oglala Lakota with “the highest possible health status.” By some
estimates the average life expectancy of a man on the Pine Ridge Reservation is
56 years; for a woman it is 66 years. How
is this possible in the United States of America?
In the Catholic
Church there is a long tradition of social teaching—animated by Scripture and
informed by reason and experience—that cherishes the care of the sick. In the
Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus reminds his followers: “Come, you who are
blessed of my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave
me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me” (Matthew 25.34
– 35). Building on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Pope John XXIII in his
encyclical Pacem in Terris, or “Peace
on Earth” (11 April 1963), not only affirms health care as a human right
(section 11), but calls upon governments to insure its adequacy (section 60).
In the light
of our Catholic Christian tradition we are bound by our consciences to serve as
advocates for the dignity of the vulnerable in our midst. And so we ask you: How
can the health care offered to the First Americans of the Pine Ridge
Reservation be so inadequate for so long? It is out of our deep concern
for the welfare of the Oglala Lakota, who are made in the image of God, that we
now call upon you as a federal official responsible for the operation of Pine
Ridge Hospital to set aside time to meet with our working group to address our deep
concerns about the quality of care offered in the Pine Ridge Service Area. We
will contact your office to schedule an appointment.
Respectfully
submitted,
Concerned Catholics of the Oglala
Lakota Nation
Cc:
Editor
America Magazine
106 West 56th
Street
New York, New York 10019
Mr. Bryan Brewer, Sr.
President
Oglala Sioux Tribe
Post Office Box 2070
Pine Ridge, South Dakota
57770
Ms. Dixie Gaikowski
The Deputy Area Director
of Field Operations
Aberdeen Area Indian
Health Service
Federal Building, Room 309
115 4th Avenue
SE
Aberdeen, South Dakota
57401
The Most Reverend Robert
Gruss
Bishop of Rapid City
606 Cathedral Drive
Rapid City, South Dakota
57701
Health and Human Services
Committee
Oglala Sioux Tribe
Post Office Box 2070
Pine Ridge, South Dakota
57770
Attention: Ms. Dawn Black
Bull, Secretary
The Honorable Timothy
Johnson
United States Senate
136 Hart Senate Office
Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Susan V. Karol, M.D.
Medical Director, Indian
Health Service
The Reyes Building
801 Thompson Avenue, Suite
400
Rockville, Maryland 20852
Mr. Nicholas Kristof
The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, New York 10018
The Honorable Kristi Noem
United States House of
Representatives
226 Cannon Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Mr. Bart Pfankuch
Executive Editor
Rapid City Journal
507 Main Street
Rapid City, South Dakota
57701
Yvette Roubideaux, M.D.
Director, Indian Health
Service
The Reyes Building
801 Thompson Avenue, Suite
400
Rockville, Maryland 20852
The Honorable Kathleen
Sebelius
United States Department
of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Avenue SW
Washington, D.C. 20201
The Honorable John Thune
United States Senate
511 Dirksen Senate Office
Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
No comments:
Post a Comment