Native Americans have received substandard care and many have died needlessly because of errors Indian Health Service hospitals. The federal agency provides health care to 2 million Native Americans, but in South Dakota alone, thousands of residents in the state's rural reservations face "limited access to primary care providers,
long wait times for basic medical treatments and outstanding medical
debt for necessary care sought outside the federally-funded facilities," Dana Ferguson reports for The Argus Leader in Sioux Falls.
The federal government has mostly ignored these conditions or failed to make meaningful change, which violates its treaty with Native Americans to provide for their health care. The Argus Leader investigated Rosebud and Pine Ridge Indian Health Service hospitals in South Dakota for months, reviewing records and legal filings and interviewing patients to glean information, Ferguson reports.
The "horror stories" they uncovered included an incident where doctors restrained and used pepper spray on a patient overdosing on methamphetamines, which triggered a fatal heart attack. And at the Rosebud, faulty temperature controls and mold on the walls sickened staff and patients, sometimes preventing the staff from working.
Attempts to sue the government for violating its treaty haven't gone anywhere, and neither have feeble Congressional attempts to improve the situation. Now, Rosebud is once again at risk of losing federal funding because of repeated errors, and Pine Ridge lost its ability to bill to Medicare last year after failing to meet quality standards for the program, Ferguson reports.
A major part of the problem is that Congress has underfunded IHS hospitals since the Fort Laramie Treaty was signed in 1868, according the Donald Warne, chair of the Department of Public Heath at North Dakota State University. "Congress has been in breach of contract for decades," he told Ferguson.
Medicaid expansion could help Native Americans living in poverty, but South Dakota has refused to entertain the notion, and a bill to make it easier to fire incompetent doctors from IHS hospitals stalled out because of "lawmaker apathy," Ferguson reports.
The federal government has mostly ignored these conditions or failed to make meaningful change, which violates its treaty with Native Americans to provide for their health care. The Argus Leader investigated Rosebud and Pine Ridge Indian Health Service hospitals in South Dakota for months, reviewing records and legal filings and interviewing patients to glean information, Ferguson reports.
The "horror stories" they uncovered included an incident where doctors restrained and used pepper spray on a patient overdosing on methamphetamines, which triggered a fatal heart attack. And at the Rosebud, faulty temperature controls and mold on the walls sickened staff and patients, sometimes preventing the staff from working.
Attempts to sue the government for violating its treaty haven't gone anywhere, and neither have feeble Congressional attempts to improve the situation. Now, Rosebud is once again at risk of losing federal funding because of repeated errors, and Pine Ridge lost its ability to bill to Medicare last year after failing to meet quality standards for the program, Ferguson reports.
A major part of the problem is that Congress has underfunded IHS hospitals since the Fort Laramie Treaty was signed in 1868, according the Donald Warne, chair of the Department of Public Heath at North Dakota State University. "Congress has been in breach of contract for decades," he told Ferguson.
Medicaid expansion could help Native Americans living in poverty, but South Dakota has refused to entertain the notion, and a bill to make it easier to fire incompetent doctors from IHS hospitals stalled out because of "lawmaker apathy," Ferguson reports.
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