Native American Women Face Poor IHS Care, Especially after Being Raped

Good article from the Redwood City Daily News.

Here are a few excerpts from an interview with Charon Asetoyer, who is from the Yankton Nakota Reservation in South Dakota, and is the founder of the Native American Women's Health Education Resource Center (link on right at Native Shop).

First, we see that other Federal agencies are aware of the problems with poor care through the Indian Health Service (IHS).

Not that you need to be reminded, but here are some statistics that give us an idea of the scope of the problem, again from the article:

Bernadine Healy, MD, former director of the National Institutes of Health, described the Indian Health Service (IHS) in 2004 as "everyone's worst nightmare of what government healthcare would look like. The system is riddled with crumbling facilities, mindless regulations, ancient equipment, and far too few nurses, doctors, pharmacists, and dentists." When it comes to the care of Indian women who have suffered sexual assault, the current IHS is all that and more.

One in three American Indian women (34.1 percent) experience rape in their lifetimes as compared with 18 percent of white women and 19 percent of African American women, according to a Department of Justice study. Despite this high rate, there are few nurses trained within the IHS as sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs), training which includes use of a police rape kit to gather forensic evidence and instruction on how to care for a rape victim in a respectful and medically appropriate manner. One report found that 44 percent of IHS facilities had no SANE-trained staff available. Other necessary care such as STD screening is also not being done.

The journalist posed the following questions to Ms. Asetoyer:

Q: What challenges face reservation-based Indian women who seek post-rape care?

A: At the local level, there are no standardized sexual assault policies and protocols within Indian Health Service emergency rooms. In some service units, there are protocols and procedures, but this is a federal agency that needs to be standardized - especially for Native American and Alaska Native women.

We also have a situation in which 44 percent do not even have [forensically] trained staff. If you don't have a rape kit done on a woman who has been raped, you don't have any forensic evidence. There needs to be trained SANE nurses able to do rape kits in every single reservation and Alaskan native village. You've got villages in Alaska where the plane only comes in on Wednesday. If you were raped on Thursday, Friday or Saturday, you have to wait that long - and they expect you not to bathe and wash away the evidence. That is totally unrealistic.

Q: Why do American Indian women receive less comparable care than women outside of the reservation?
A: Tribal leadership has their plate full just trying to keep our IHS facilities open - even though the incidence of sexual assault and rape is so high within the Indian community. But it is a top priority for victims and women. Even though health care is a right guaranteed to us through treaty, the IHS still has to work on financial authorization from Congress. We receive less than half of what every other American is afforded for health care, and this has allowed the IHS to deteriorate to the level that it is now. The doctors do an incredible job with the resources that they have, but they don't have resources necessary to improve the health status for us.

Ms. Asetoyer went on to describe how non-Native men know they can go into an area and rape the women with impunity, partly because of jurisdictional problems and partly because the IHS lacks enough personnel to administer rape kits and collect the forensic evidence necessary to prosecute them.

IHS does not have the staff or funding to set up women's shelters to help battered and sexually assaulted women, so it has been up to local community groups like Pretty Bird Women House to set up shelters. Currently, many reservations who lacked shelters are in the process of setting them up and hiring court advocates.

I've covered the jurisdictional problems that Amnesty International highlighted in their report last year, but this article highlights how the underfunded and understaffed Indian Health Service also contributes to the problem.

The article also serves as a reminder of what a big impact your help has had on the Standing Rock Reservation. The women face so many challenges to their health and well being, and the fact that there is now a functioning shelter located in a safe building (that YOU bought!!) is a huge help to them. The only reason it exists right now (aside from the incredible dedication of its director, Georgia Little Shield), is because of the generosity of the Netroots. I will always be in awe of that.

One more thing, I'm going to be continually reminding people that Pretty Bird Woman House will need a new furnace this winter. This is the last big ticket item that they need help with, since the federal grants that they've procured don't cover this expense.

On that note, see the post below.