Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly pledged to guard and enhance well being providers for Native Americans — whether or not talking throughout his late-January Senate affirmation listening to or an April trip to Arizona, the place he met with tribal leaders.
In some methods, he has.
When layoffs had been set to hit the Indian Health Service — the federal company answerable for offering well being care to Native Americans and Alaska Natives — Kennedy’s division rescinded the actions hours later.
In April, whereas visiting Arizona’s Navajo Nation, Kennedy informed KFF Health News he was ensuring broader price range cuts and layoffs at HHS don’t have an effect on Native American communities.
But tribal leaders expressed skepticism. They mentioned they’ve already seen fallout from the sweeping reorganization throughout federal well being businesses. Public well being knowledge is incomplete and company communication has turn into much less dependable. Tribes have additionally misplaced at the very least $6 million in grants from different HHS businesses, according to a letter the National Indian Health Board despatched to Kennedy in May.
“There may be a misconception among some of the administration that Indian Country is only impacted by changes to the Indian Health Service,” mentioned Liz Malerba, a tribal coverage knowledgeable and citizen of the Mohegan Tribe. “That’s simply not true.”
Native Americans face greater charges of persistent ailments and die younger than other populations. Those inequities stem from centuries of systemic discrimination. The Indian Health Service has been chronically underfunded and understaffed, resulting in gaps in care.
Janet Alkire, chairperson of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe within the Dakotas, mentioned during a May Senate hearing that the canceled grants paid for neighborhood well being employees, vaccinations, knowledge modernization, and different public well being efforts.
Other packages — together with ones aimed toward Native American youth interested in science and medicine and increasing access to healthy foods — had been slashed after the federal government mentioned they violated the Trump administration’s ban on “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Native leaders and organizations have requested tribal consultation, a authorized course of required when federal businesses think about adjustments that will have an effect on tribal nations. Alkire and different tribal leaders on the Senate committee listening to mentioned federal officers had not responded.
“This is not just a moral question of what we owe Native people,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) mentioned on the listening to. “It is also a question of the law.”
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