Byron Dorgan: “I will speak to an issue I spoke about nearly a month ago in the Senate. Because nothing has happened substantially…”

“I will speak to an issue I spoke about nearly a month ago in the Senate. Because nothing has happened substantially since then, I wanted to raise the issue. We are coming to the end of the legislative session. We will be here the rest of this week and next week. The time for consideration is going to be devoted to legislation the majority leader has already described. Then we are off in August for an August break, back in September, off in October for the election. The issue I want to talk about is the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. The reason I want to do that is I want to describe something that is happening in this country that very few people think much about, perhaps some don't care much about, but I know that there are some in this Senate who do, and I believe they would agree with me that we need to move forward and pass the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. Let me describe why this is urgent. Some while ago I came to the Senate and told my colleagues about a young woman--I did that with the consent of the young woman's relatives--a young woman named Avis Littlewind. Avis was, I believe, 14 years old. Avis took her own life. She laid in a bed for 90 days. She was supposed to have been in school. Instead, she lay in a fetal position in bed. At the end of that time she took her own life. No warning signs went up to anyone, nobody from the school, nobody from the mental health area, the tribe, or the family. Somehow she just escaped attention.…”