S.E. RUCKMAN: Words are like Arrows that we Shoot into the Air

The Comanche Nation tested the winds of public opinion recently that blew much like a hurricane across the Southern Plains. A group of Lawton Indian Hospital patients gathered to tell stories of medical negligence or misconduct that were mostly anecdotal stories.  I scribbled furiously. Then someone said   they wondered how many of them were exaggerated.

I paused for a moment. The thought didn’t occur to me because anyone who has ever used the Indian Health Services (IHS) knows that going is a bit like a dice game and the outcome depends a lot on chance. Not all the time, but it happens often enough. In this case, nearly all the stories had a similarity to them that defied theatrics.

As I watched, scores of elders hobbled in to the mid-morning meeting determined to find a seat. There were those who rolled in on wheelchairs and a wide berth opened for them. I saw those with amputated limbs, beaded walking canes, diabetic shoes and buzz cuts that come from chemotherapy.

A meeting of this kind had not really happened before. I’m not saying it has never happened because every now and then, a frustrated patient comes into the local health board meeting to plead awareness to a particular plight. But a strange confluence of events (and elders) seemed to be brewing here.

Comanche chairman Wallace Coffey called the meeting. Outside of southwest OK, few know that he became a widower when his wife, Debora, died recently of a particularly virulent type of cancer that was diagnosed by a physician at the Lawton Indian Hospital. Additionally, the vice-chairman of the Ft. Sill Apache Tribe, Lori Gooday Ware, just lost her brother to a heart attack who was also a patient at the facility.

A climate of recent loss hung over this meeting. Grief swirled around peppered with frustration and a dose of anger thrown in. Saying that IHS is a beleaguered organization is an understatement. Still, it’s quite remarkable that the existing circumstances of this facility have created a novel platform: The medical tell-all session. HIPAA was theoretically banished for the moment.

But what was not said is just as interesting as the patient who said she went to the ER and found the provider asleep in one of the treatment rooms. A look at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) 2014 Budget Brief tells us that IHS’ budget has seen a nearly 33 percent increase in its discretionary budget since 2008.

It looks good on paper. The report said that it included a $244 million increase over 2012 figures and were earmarked to secure critical health services purchased outside of the system. In other words, it means that monies were upped because some serious needs were not being met within the health system we have.

But this has no comfort for the man who told of his wife’s desperate need for another back surgery that was being denied even as he broke down in front of strangers.  The words not spoken here are clear. Our health system renders casualties without seeming to. All the while, Indian people are hoping against hope that they will not one day fall ill.

No magic wand exists that will suddenly make all the money available to meet Indian peoples’ every health need. But we are back at the eye of the hurricane. It’s apparent that doing nothing on a federal level certainly means no remedy will materialize on the local level. It will take the active efforts of Congressional delegates to help change this bleak scenario.

Officials hinted at possible litigation and demanded an audit of the facility. But courting the attention of the elected delegates seems to work for other tribes. But it must be spearheaded by the tribal leaders.

I listened intently to every story. I gazed out across all the bowed heads as a local Kiowa elder spoke a benediction over the gathering. Not one head (except mine-I was peeking) was raised. It was easy to see Indian people were both literally and figuratively making their requests known because it has become a matter of bearable life or agonizing death.

Quite simply, the battle-weary have spoken. The time for band-aids has long passed.

 

S.E. Ruckman is a special contributor to the Native Times. She is a member of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes and was a staff writer for the Tulsa World. Ruckman was recently named a 2014 National Health Journalism Fellow by the Annenberg School of Journalism at the University of Southern California (USC).