Political Quotes

“Madam President, if you asked Native Americans in my home State of South Dakota how they felt about the Indian Health Service, you would be hard pressed to find a positive review. Indian Health Service patients in the Great Plains area, which encompasses North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa, have been receiving substandard medical care for years. Too often, clean exam rooms appear to be a luxury for South Dakota's Native American patients. Dirty facilities and dirty, unsanitized equipment are common, and patient care is often slipshod at best. One health service facility was in such disarray that a pregnant mother gave birth on a bathroom floor without a single medical professional nearby, which shockingly wasn't the first time this had happened at this facility. Another patient at the same facility who had suffered a severe head injury was discharged from the hospital mere hours after checking in, only to be called back later the same day once his test results arrived. The patient's condition was so serious that he was immediately flown to another facility for care. A patient at Pine Ridge Hospital in Pine Ridge, SD, was discharged from the emergency department and died from cardiac arrest 2 hours later. An investigation by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that the patient had failed to receive an adequate evaluation before his discharge.…”