Native Americans Reliant on Hospital Feel Abandoned by U.S. During Pandemic

January 4, 2021

(New York Times) – The Indian Health Service had a problem. Fed up with substandard care, one of the two pueblos whose federal funding helped support the health service’s Acoma-Cañoncito-Laguna hospital in Acoma Pueblo, N.M., decided to take its share of the hospital’s budget and start its own independently run clinic. But doing so left the I.H.S. short of money for the hospital. In effect, the health service was caught between the desire of one constituency to take control of its own health care and the need of another to keep a well-established hospital operating. In the end, it slashed services at the hospital in November, closing its inpatient critical care unit, women’s services and emergency room.