A hearing was held on Friday in Rapid City, South Dakota, at the request of U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-SD) to gain input from stakeholders about Indian Health Services (IHS) facilities on the Great Plains.
The hearing also looked at legislation introduced by Thune and U.S. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, to reform IHS.
“The laundry list of issues plaguing the IHS has been well-litigated over the last six years,” Thune said. “No one knows those problems better than the tribal members who’ve been directly affected by them. While that conversation is far from over, (Friday’s) hearing was an important turning point toward examining the concrete areas in which we can make improvements and reforms to an agency tasked with the critical role of providing quality health care to tribal citizens in South Dakota and around the country.”
U.S. Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD) and U.S. Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD) provided input about needed reforms to improve IHS services on the Great Plains during the hearing.
“(Friday’s) hearing helped us better understand the problems at IHS,” Rounds said. “It is clear that IHS is dealing with serious administrative, financial and quality-of-care issues that still need to be addressed. In order to fulfill its trust responsibility to tribal members, IHS must undergo major reform, under close collaboration with the tribes. Consultation with the tribes is critical. Further, today’s hearing reaffirmed the importance of an external audit of IHS so we can work to fix their systemic problems.”
Noem said that IHS should “get out of the hospital business” all together.
“The medical and administrative malpractice in the Great Plains is killing our tribal communities,” Noem said. “Expansive reforms are necessary to end the corruption, mismanagement and life-threatening care. I am encouraged that we already have broad agreement between the House and Senate on some of the legislative changes, but cooperation from federal agencies will be paramount to our success. I thank Chairman Barrasso, Sens. Thune and Rounds, the witnesses, and the many tribal members who attended (Friday’s) hearing. In the end, we are all partners in fixing this problem.”