Posted on 02/04/2016 11:03:04 AM PST by Citizen Zed
One woman died after she was left on the floor of her hospital room, overdosed by poorly trained staff.
Others died in ambulances on long journeys to emergency rooms because local facilities were closed for being such a mess.
...
"What we've found is simply horrifying and unacceptable. In my view, the information provided to this committee and witness first hand can be summed up in one word: malpractice," Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso, who chairs the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
"The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services -- another agency within the Department of Health and Human Services -- has confirmed not only that these same problems continue to fester, but that they pose immediate risk to patient safety," Barrasso added.
"In fact, they have led to multiple patient deaths."
One of those deaths was Debra Free, who died in the Winnebago Hospital in northeastern Nebraska in 2011.
"Since at least 2007, this IHS facility has been operating with demonstrated deficiencies which should not exist at any hospital in the United States," Free's niece, Victoria Kitcheyan, told the committee.
"I am not talking about unpainted walls or equipment that is outdated," Kitcheyan, who is treasurer of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, said.
"I am talking about a facility which employs emergency room nurses who do not know how to administer such basic drugs as dopamine; employees who did not know how to call a Code Blue; an emergency room where defibrillators could not be found or utilized when a human life was at stake; and a facility which has a track record of sending patients home with aspirin and other over-the-counter drugs, only to have them airlifted out from our Reservation in a life threatening state."
Not a volunteer, an employee.
yeppers
theyre not illegal aliens or Islamic terrorists
“Reservations and Reservation life is a close to life in the Soviet Union as we have ever come in this country.”
Yeah, except the walls and fences are to keep us out, not to keep them in. All they have to do is leave.
That was 60Gunner. He is still posting, but not (presently) on the subject of nursing. I agree, great stories, including the ones about his road-trip adventures.
In the 1973-5 we were stationed in Klamath falls, Oregon...
the local Indian tribes would get large lumps of cash periodically because they owned certain lands or some such reason...
anyhoo every few years when they were given multiple thousands of dollars they spent it right away on luxuries...
brand new cars that they left on the side when they run out of gas...just buy another one eh ???
beautiful houses that they filled with pigs, horses, cows etc yes really...
and so on...
and of course they had lots of sudden friends who helped them spent it...
It was appalling that the government did not help them control their money..
within weeks months they would be poverty stricken again and probably in debt through easily gotten loans etc..and friendless of course...the kids running dirty and barefoot the houses condemned as unlivable..and no cars..
when we got there they were about to receive another large allotment and we were told what happens and sure enough it did...
I was so sorry for the Indians who would be in dire straits for years and then kings for a few days, weeks months with nobody to help them ...they lived for those few moments of plenty..
Call Elizabeth Warren, she can straighten this out.
Her high cheekbones shall solve the problem.
What sad pessimism about life.
I would think, in principle, “missionaries” could help, but I suspect that the muck-ups by earlier waves of missionaries who were less bent on “sharing Christ” than putting the tribes under their thumb have engendered a lot of modern tribal skepticism, making most modern evangelical approaches distasteful. Those tribes have long memories, it’s ingrained into their culture to do so, and of course our dandy lie-berals have spread even worse stories than what took place.
A lot of challenges. Missionaries could still help, but it would have to look like something custom to their situation with good answers to why they had suffered in the past and with a lot of patience.
The US broke every treaty they ever had with Indians. The Indians never broke a single one. Just another string of corrupt government screwings.
Our benevolent government has had the Indians on the welfare train for over a century. Some have taken ahold of opportunities and are doing well. Others are just waiting for someone else to do things for them.
My first thought. And it comes down to following the money, or federal unions and the Dept of InJustice in the case of the VA.
My first thought. And it comes down to following the money, or federal unions and the Dept of InJustice in the case of the VA.
I am American Indian, my younger brother is a doctor. He calls IHS the final solution to the Indian Problem.
No, we don’t live on the reservation.
My sis worked at one of the clinics. We too are American Indian. Every tribal election there is almost a wholesale change of staff at the clinic. Every position that can be subject to spoils is changed. Only the doctors and professionals that can’t be replaced stay. It is a bloody mess.
My sis had an Indian at the clinic that was hired to move samples from the clinic to the central IHS hospital. Some days the samples would arrive in good shape, some days not and some days not at all. She tried to “coach” or “counsel” him but to no avail. One day he came to her office door with a hat on that said “Soon is when I get there.” Stood there, looked at her until she looked up and saw the hat then walked away. Very slowly.
When I was home at Christmas I saw what was a nice Indian house not a year ago that a guy’s sister and kids moved into. The curtains were blowing out the broken front window and the smoke was coming out the chimney and everybody looked just as happy as if all was just perfect. I never have seen a house be positively destroyed that quickly. That valley is absolutely littered with destroyed Indian houses that were once pretty nice little places.
We went around taking pictures one year of front porches to enter in America’s junkiest front porch on Jeff Foxworthy’s show. I can’t believe we didn’t win. I could spend the rest of my life hauling off old cars and junk from porches and front yards back home.
You made me laugh and spew my evening tea up my nose.
The grass still grows and the water still flows but the treaty has been modified into non-existence.
There is a lot of LIE-beral gossip going around that intends to get the Indians thinking of themselves as poor downtrodden victims.
Well there is a devil and he doesn’t even have skin.
He tries to hide the way of victory from men.
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