Southern Arizona Congressman Juan Ciscomani is asking the Trump administration to suspend its plan to shutter a federal facility in Tucson, where tribal members go to receive medical care.
The Indian Health Service’s Tucson Area Office serves more than 28,000 tribal members from the Pascua Yaqui, Tohono O’odham Nation and other tribes.
U.S. Health and Human Services, which oversees the Indian Health Service, said it’s preparing to shutter the facility as part of a broader realignment plan. It plans to merge operations handled there with the Phoenix office.
In an Aug. 10 letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Ciscomani says closing the facility would force patients to travel farther.
The Republican congressman is the latest lawmaker to call for the facility to remain open. Democrats in Arizona’s Legislature have been calling for the same since the plan was announced in June.
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