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The National Tribal Healthcare Conference was held in Rapid City, S.D. this year, a major event for the Monument theater downtown.
With 1,600 attendees, the event also brought key figures from Washington, D.C. SDPB’s C.J. Keene has more.
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough spoke to attendees about the Biden-Harris Administration’s priorities relating to veterans, with a particular emphasis on Indigenous perspectives.
“You’ll remember, back in November of 2022 I made a commitment to you guys. I said we’d have a copay exemption in place for American Indians and Alaska Natives by year’s end. We missed it by a couple of months, but we got it done last spring, and it’s making a difference. Over 6,000 vets have applied for the waiver.”
Despite that early success, McDonough says there are over 60,000 eligible Native veterans who still haven’t applied for those benefits.
“My concern is – how many Native vets just don’t know this benefit is waiting for them? I want to ask for your help. That’s the same approach we’re taking on reimbursement, expanding the scope of support for Native vets.”
Information about how to apply for that program can be found at sdpb.org/news.
Another current priority for the VA is to expand access to traditional medicine and mental health treatments for Indigenous vets.
“When I talk about meeting vets where they are, I’m talking spiritually, mentally, and culturally as well. Now, we already offer traditional medicine at some of our facilities, but we need more formal recognition and integration of traditional healing as part of our healthcare programs. So, IHS director Roselyn Tso is fighting alongside us.”
Also near the top of the priority list is rural outreach, particularly on reservation settings.
(Courtesy Mark Heitman / Flickr)
The Lac du Flambeau Tribe says the federal government should be providing millions more in funding to combat the Tribe’s drug issues and their consequences.
Over the last six years, the 11-member Tribal police department has made more than 2,000 arrests.
Fully half have been drug-related, but overworked law enforcement is only one challenge presented by drugs, as Ben Meyer explains.
Lac du Flambeau Tribal Vice President George Thompson said meth, heroin, and fentanyl addictions are driving the mental health crisis and spurring human trafficking on the reservation.
Drug addiction has also had a major impact on housing.
“We were at a point, with the amount of drug use, it damn-near bankrupted our housing authority. It still continues to hurt our housing authority.”
V.P. Thompson testified earlier this month in Washington before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies.
He was one of many Tribal officials from across the country to do so.
V.P. Thompson said federal laws are written in a way that inhibits federal funding from being used to clean up drug houses on the reservation.
“It costs the Tribe at least four to eight thousand dollars to clean and test a meth-contaminated home. We are losing our housing inventory due to drugs. This is causing overcrowding and domestic and child abuse.”
V.P. Thompson wants Congress to rewrite the law to allow for clean-up funding to flow more easily.
He also said cartels are now bringing drugs directly to the reservation.
To fight these issues, V.P. Thompson said the federal government should be sending millions more to Lac du Flambeau to uphold the government’s trust responsibility to the tribe.
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