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Rosebud IHS Protest 12 Feb 2003
 IHS Protest Ruth Steinberger for Lakota Journal
Administrators at Rosebud IHS Put on Notice Lakota Journal
Bone Shirt Critical of RST Council's Lack of Action against I.H.S.
Testimonials and March on Rosebud-IHS publicizes health care dificencies text. Click here for image of story.
Woman Claims Wrong Prescription Given by IHS Harmful to her
The call for the IHS Protest 12 Feb 2003
Rosebud Sioux Tribal Council Roll Call for Support of March
Health Care Apartheid and American Indians
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Testimonials and March on Rosebud-IHS publicizes health care dificencies
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This is the day all the people will get together
This is the day all the people will pray together
This is the day all the people will give testimony together
This is the day all the people will begin to heal
Peoples News - Weekly Lakota News & Culture
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IHS PROTEST 12 FEB 2003
Greeting,
PLEASE PASS FAR and WIDE.
Our Sicangu Lakota Grass Roots Oyate, AIM are helping with this march and
Protest against the Indian health Service. We are demanding better health
care and complete removal from Indian Country, the individuals causing the
problems. we need your help in contacting the senators, and other
officials, and Please contact Media, This is a way of helping Our people
here and hopefully elsewhere. We need all the Outside support we can get.
Alfred Bone Shirt
The telephone number to the Rosbud tribal Office
is 605-747-2381. Ask for the Vice-chairman office for more information.
Rosebud Sioux Tribe
Sicangu Oyate
Rosebud, South Dakota 57570
P.O. Box 430
January 29, 2003
To Whom It May Concern:
The Rosebud Sioux Tribe is planning a march on the IHS hospital on the Rosebud Reservation. We are hereby asking for your support of our struggle to see that quality health care is provided to our people.
Attached for your information and action is the tentative agenda for the planned march. All tribes are welcomed and encouraged to participate in this march and to show a uniting of our tribal nations.
If your tribe is unable to attend please submit a letter of support to the Tribal Chairman Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Box 430, Rosebud, SD, 57570.
Sincerely,
William Kindle
RST President
(The attachment is given below)
_______________________________
March on I.H.S.
Wednesday February 12, 2003 at 1:00 p.m.
Beginning at the Tribal Council Chambers
TENTATIVE AGENDA
1. Meet at the Tribal Building Starting at 1:00 p.m.
2. Speakers and prayers until 2:30 p.m.
3. At 2:30 p.m. begin the March to I.H.S.
4. Itinerary for the march to be scheduled through planning meetings.
5. Feed after the march at the R.S.T. Veterans Affairs Bldg.
6. After the feed the R.S.T. Health Board will begin taking public testimony at the Vets Affairs Bldg.*
Administrative leave will be granted from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. for all tribal employees who wish to participate in the march.
*People are asked to limit their oral public testimony to three minutes and are encouraged to bring all testimony in writing for the use of the Health Board in furthering the cause of providing Quality Health Care for our people here and abroad.
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This is a roll call vote by the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Council in support
of the March against the Indian Health Service. It must be understood
that the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Council representatives who voted against
this March or were absent have been viewed by the Sicangu Lakota Grass
Roots Oyate as corrupt, good possiblity they are part of the FAILED
LEADERSHIP and problems we are protesting in the first place. We are
glad they are exposing themselves. One of these Council men( Wayne
Boyd) owns a liquor outlet here on the Rosebud, makes a lot of money, to
add to the HEALTH problems alcohol creates here on the Rosebud, also uses
the money generated to buy his and his supporters way into office. This
along with FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMENT OF THE ROSEBUD SIOUX TRIBE'S IRA
GOVERNMENT is some of the major problems we have yet to face.( WAYNE BOYD
IS ON THE RST FINANCE COMMITTEE) (The Tribal Council wouldn't allow
for administrative leave for that day, so any Tribal worker would have to
take their own leave time. )
Alfred Bone Shirt
ROSEBUD SIOUX TRIBAL COUNCIL
ROLL CALL VOTE SHEET
Date: 02-04-03
SUBJECT: Motion by Tez Duysak that the Rosebud Sioux Tribe supports this march for quality care on IHS scheduled for Feb. 12 at 2:30.
Sec = Eric Nixon
Quest. - Steve D.
DISTRICT REPRESENTATIVES
(1)
Wayne Ducheneaus -- no
(2)
Steve DeNoyer, Jr. -- yes
(3)
Scott Herman -- no
Eddie Farmer -- absent
Wayne Boyd -- absent
Jo A. Colombe -- no
(4)
Darrell Marcus -- no
(5)
Richard Rick Young -- yes
Michael Boltz -- yes
Wanda Brave/McCauley -- yes
(6)
Eric Nixon -- yes
(7)
Tez A. Duysak, Jr. -- yes
(8)
Anthony Castaway -- yes
(9)
Robert Shot With Two Arrows -- yes
(10)
Rodney Bordeaux -- yes
Lenard Wright -- yes
Fern Bordeaux-Boltz -- yes
(11)
Christine Dunham -- no
(12)
Fremont Fallis -- yes
(13)
Clifford Chasing Hawk -- absent
TOTALS:
12 yes
5 no
0 abstain
3 absent
Motion Carried: Yes
Roll call = Taz Duysak
Posted by Reg to AIM list
The Rosebud Sioux Tribe (RST) is planning a march on the Indian
Health Service (HIS) hospital on the Rosebud Reservation. "The RST
invites all who are concerned about the quality of the health care
being provided to our people to come and support this public
demonstration of our struggle to see that I.H.S. provide the quality
health care that the Sicangu Lakota people are entitled to," says
their call. The peaceful march on I.H.S. will take place on Wednesday
February 12, 2003 at 1:00 p.m. beginning at the Tribal Council
Chambers in Rosebud. A tentative agenda includes an opening prayer
and guest speakers. At 2:30 p.m. the group will leave the Tribal
office and walk to the I.H.S. hospital. Following the walk there will
be a meal served at the RST Veterans Affairs building.
The RST Health Board will hold a forum after the meal to accept
comments from the public. RST Vice-president Ike Schmidt outlined
several health care issues currently facing the Tribe. "We don't have
a dentist, we have a severe nursing shortage…and there is no proper
protocol in treating cancer patients…if [the RST] contracted [the
Rosebud Hospital] we could do just as good a job, if not better,"
stated Vice-president Schmidt. RST Ambulance Service Director Steve
Brave stated that his program "is funded at 40% of what we actually
need [to operate emergency medical services]…over 6,000 calls were
received [on the Rosebud Reservation in 2002.] This is 1,000 calls
more than what we received in 2001." Sicangu Lakota Grass Roots
Oyate, AIM are helping with this march and Protest (and calling for
the removal of local HIS staff responsible for many reported
problems) at the Indian health Service hospital. The telephone number
to the Rosbud tribal Office is 605-747-2381. Ask for the Vice-
chairman office for more information on the march.
The deplorable state of health care for American Indians is hardly
unique to the Rosebud Reservation.
In Arizona, the average age at death for whites is 72, compared with
55 for Native Americans. That's younger than for residents of
Bangladesh. The federal government, which promised in treaties to
provide health care for Native Americans, spends less than half as
much per tribal member as it does for programs covering other
Americans. Private health plans spend more than twice as much per
person. "If this were happening in any other part of America, there
would be Senate hearings, commissions," said Sergio Maldonado Sr., an
Arapaho who is a program coordinator in the American Indian Studies
program at Arizona State University. "They would be asking, 'Why are
these people dying? Is it the water? The air? Anthrax? But because
it's Arapaho, Sioux, the border towns around reservations, no one
blinks an eye."
Today, there is health care apartheid in the United States. If you
are a person of color, you receive fewer services, inferior care and
less successful -- medically speaking -- health care outcomes. And if
you are an American Indian, especially one living in Indian country,
the situation is even starker. American Indians have a much heavier
disease burden than the general population. This includes a higher
death rate from alcoholism (740 percent), tuberculosis (500 percent)
and diabetes (390 percent) than other Americans. Type 2 adult-onset
diabetes is a particular problem, with 12.2 percent of American
Indians those over 19 years old suffering from the disease. In just
one extreme example, the Pima tribe in Arizona has the highest rate
of diabetes in the world -- approximately 50 percent of the tribe
between the ages of 30 and 64 have diabetes. The leading causes of
death for Native Americans are heart disease and cancer, the same as
for other populations. But while those rates are closer to the norm,
they are increasing as other populations are seeing improvements.
Native Americans die in accidents at more than three times the rate
of other Americans, a fact so discouraging that some say facetiously
they wish for more disease. "We'd love to have higher cancer rates,"
said Alan Dellapenna, deputy director of the Indian Health Service
Office of Environmental Health and Engineering in Rockville,
Md. "That would mean young people were living long enough to develop
those kinds of diseases."
Makeshift operating and recovery rooms equipped with minimal,
unqualified staff are becoming more commonplace in federally
sponsored Indian hospitals and health clinics. These doctors and
support staff often have poor professional track records, and when
coupled with inadequate medical equipment and supplies, the result is
an environment that cannot insure the well being of Indian patients.
There is no doubt why some federal judges have referred to the IHS
services as substandard.
Since the beginning of the "contractual relationship" between tribal
governments and the U.S. government, the federal funding system has
consistently provided inadequate health care funding, failing to
fulfill this aspect of the agreement. The contract called for Indian
peoples to relinquish vast amounts of their prime homelands and
natural resources, in exchange for, among other things, on-going
federal heath care. The land transfers occurred. Adequate funding for
Indian health care did not. The health-care system that serves Indian
peoples is known as the Indian Health Service (IHS). Currently, the
IHS meets approximately 40 percent of the health care needs of Indian
peoples, due to a shameful lack of federal funding.
This year's budget for the Indian Health Service is $3.2 billion. But
according to a study conducted by a group of tribal and Indian health
leaders, more than $7 billion annually would be needed to provide
care similar to that other Americans receive. And $15 billion would
be needed to add and improve facilities to make the system equal. The
Indian Health Service spends about $1,920 per person annually. That
compares with more than $4,390 that private insurance budgets for
most Americans' health plans, or the federal government's $3,859 for
Medicaid, $5,600 for Medicare and more than $5,700 that veterans
receive. "Health care for Native people has never been a high
priority nationally," said U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-
Colo., a Cheyenne chief and the only Native American in the Senate.
While Congress debates how to allocate trillions of dollars, medical
treatment for American Indians and Alaska Natives is being
rationed." Dr. Craig Vanderwagen, chief medical officer for the
health service, acknowledges that the system is seriously
flawed. "We don't feel good about the number of patients who need
care who are rejected because their problem is not life-threatening,"
said Vanderwagen, based in Rockville, Md. "It's rationing. We hold
them off until they're sick enough to meet our criteria. That's not a
good way to practice medicine. It's not the way providers like to
practice. And if I were an Indian tribal leader, I'd be frustrated."
To say the least!
Sources: Dakota-Lakota-Nakota Human Rights Advocacy Coalition,
Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Inidanz,, Arizona Republic, Indian Country Today
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