Project Summary
Empower local Pine Ridge communities to advocate for access to culturally appropriate,
trauma-informed quality health care and health equity. Train local leaders to collect data on
community members’ wants and needs concerning current access to health care through
listening sessions and surveys with sovereign solutions. Share data via a culturally-informed
community review process; provide training and technical support for key leaders to share
findings with policy makers at local, tribal, and national levels, including Oceti Sakowin (Seven
Council Fires Treaty Confederation).
Background
In the wake of the onset of COVID-19, the need for Indigenous communities to have
access to culturally appropriate, quality healthcare is glaringly apparent. The barriers to care for
Indigenous people are numerous. Chronically under-funded healthcare facilities, limited
healthcare services due to insufficient funding, a lack of healthcare insurance and exceedingly
long distances to healthcare facilities, are among the many determinants that contribute to this
single fact: health status and life expectancy among Native American people is the lowest in the
United States. In the case of Pine Ridge, SD, the lowest in the western hemisphere, aside from
Haiti.
In the months following the announcement of COVID-19, community members on Pine
Ridge found not only a lack of support for their health, but they realized they could not rely on
the usual means of community support. Since then, “societies” have arisen within villages.
Some protect the roads, others help elders and children, and some have started to reach out
beyond IHS, asking for help with a plan-of-action that would allow access to quality healthcare
within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge community.
Pine Ridge faces a plethora of obstacles. Excessive poverty, violent crime, high rates of
suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, unending attempts at encroachment on their lands by industry,
racism from surrounding communities and more. With all of that, leaders are emerging from
inside the villages. They seek only to strengthen their people, and they see access to quality
healthcare as one way of offering hope for healing their community.
Objectives
Timeline
Identified Partners & Consultants
Jody Birdhead
Stevie Little Finger, RN
Shakopee Mdewakanton Community - pending
Peter Capossella, Esq.
Dawn Sable, COT, Clinical Manager, Grady Health Systems
Suzanne Moran, R.T. (R)(M)(ARRT), Baycare Health Systems/Saint Anthony’s Hospital
Shakopee Mdewakanton Community - pending application for funding
Un.Seen Capital - pending application for funding