VIEWPOINT: Indian country looks to Daschle for help

 

Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji)

RAPID CITY, S.D. — Former Sen. Tom Daschle soon will be seated as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services. As a man who grew up in South Dakota and served as its representative and senator for many years, he, probably above all others, is highly qualified to know and understand the health problems prevalent among the Native people of his state.

Within the HHS is the Indian Health Service, an agency that serves the needs of the 1.8 million members of the 560 federally recognized tribes. The Indian Health Service has 15,102 employees and in 2008 operated under a budget of $4.3 billion. IHS oversees 46 hospitals, 324 health centers, 309 health stations and 34 urban Indian health programs.

Established in 1921 within the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Indian Health Service was transferred to HHS in 1955.

Now, all of the above statistics makes the Indian Health Service sound pretty impressive and for lack of a better term, it is doing pretty well under difficult circumstances. And yet, the average age of Native Americans is 25 percent less than that of the white population. The twin epidemic of diabetes and infant mortality is much, much higher than that of the average American.

Several months ago, I wrote about several Lakota babies who died at birth, and every week since then, there has been a Lakota baby listed in the daily obituaries of local newspapers. The listings no longer are just a surprise but instead are shocking. Why are so many Indian babies stillborn or why do so many die shortly after they are born? With all of its employees and facilities, why can’t the Indian Health Service determine the cause of this epidemic?

There is another dreadful illness on the Indian reservations of America that is just as shocking and apparently unsolvable. The rate of adult-onset diabetes is decimating the Indian people. Nearly every month, I lose a friend or a relative to this disease. So far, I have lost two sisters and many cousins.

One of the most prominent families on the Pine Ridge Reservation is the Red Cloud family. They are the descendants of the famous Oglala Lakota leader, Chief Red Cloud. He authorized the purchase of the land upon which the Holy Rosary Indian Mission was built. As a student there many years ago, I vividly recall his name on the facade of the gray, concrete building. Red Cloud Hall was the place that housed our classrooms, a gymnasium and our dormitories.

The Red Cloud family has been involved in the politics of the Oglala Lakota for more than 150 years. The chief is buried in what has become known as “The Old Mission Cemetery” overlooking Red Cloud School.

There is no such thing as royalty among the Lakota people, but if there were, it would rest upon the shoulders of the Red Clouds. Oliver Red Cloud, the great-grandson of Chief Red Cloud, now sits in a wheelchair, having had one leg amputated because of diabetes. He has lost his son, Verdell (two weeks ago), and his daughter, Nancy, to diabetes. His son, Lyman, a man who always was so active in the politics of the reservation, is now in a wheelchair in a rest home in Rapid City. Both of his legs have been amputated because of diabetes.

Oglala Lakota attorney Mario Gonzalez, a descendant of the respected Quiver family of the Eagle Nest District of Pine Ridge, lost his mother, Geneva Eloise Wilcox Gonzales, to diabetes. Gonzalez said he was just shattered at losing his mother and so many friends and relatives to diabetes. He said, “When Nancy Red Cloud was put on the dialysis machine, I knew it would just be a matter of time for her because I have seen so many Lakota end up on that machine.”

On the lands of the Gila River Reservation in Arizona, it has been reported that nearly 50 percent of the population has been decimated by diabetes. Several studies have been ongoing there to determine the causes and to seek solutions. Gila River was the home of that famous U.S. Marine, Ira Hayes, the Pima Indian that helped to raise the flag at Iwo Jima.

Daschle has been a friend of mine for more than 30 years. I wrote him to congratulate him on his appointment to head HHS. He knows the problems of infant mortality and of the diabetes epidemic in Indian country better than anyone ever appointed to head that agency. He also knows that cancer can be added to the list of diseases that now are destroying so many Indian families. He also knows that the people of Indian country are counting on him.

Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association.

Todd Hebert President Ndakinna Cultural Center & Museum Inc. PO Box 7 East Calais VT 05650
802-456-8884 http://www.Ndakinna.org

"The Great Spirit is in all things;
He is in the air we breathe.
The Great Spirit is our Father,
But the earth is our mother.  She nourishes us;
That which we put into the ground
She returns to us..." 

Big Thunder, Wabanaki

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