The Indian Health Service, also known as IHS, announced seven projects to build or renovate health centers and inpatient hospitals throughout Indian Country. Among those beneficiaries will be Arizona’s Ak-Chin Indian Community.
The tribe’s chairman, Gabriel Lopez, is grateful for being picked among other tribes in Alaska, California, Oklahoma and South Dakota to participate in the latest round of the IHS Joint Venture Construction Program.
More than two dozen tribes across the U.S. have partnered with IHS since 1991.
That announcement was recently highlighted by Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who met with Lopez and the Ak-Chin Indian Community in Scottsdale last month.
“The elders in the community have to drive 60 to 80 miles to get decent care,” said Kennedy in a social media post, “and they have to go through Maricopa County with all the traffic, so it’s an inconvenience and it can be a lethal inconvenience.”
Lopez told KJZZ that going to medical appointments is typically an all-day affair, with most tribal patients driving in and around the Valley to Casa Grande, Marana and even as far as Sun City.
Now, Ak-Chin will construct a 60,000-square-foot facility and lease it at no cost to IHS for two decades. In exchange, the agency will lobby Congress on behalf of the tribe for federal funding to staff and maintain that building.
“Currently, we have a satellite facility, which is 2,000 square feet, it's a triple-wide trailer with minimal services,” added Lopez. “It is promising. In a roundabout way, we’re looking at maybe about two years to be up and running.”
Doing so will not only expand access to primary, dental and radiology care for Ak-Chin near the city of Maricopa but other neighboring tribal members from the Tohono O’odham Nation, Pascua Yaqui Tribe and Gila River Indian Community.
-
Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren made his third annual state address in Shiprock on Tuesday, outlining his administration’s accomplishments amid ongoing efforts to remove him from office before his term expires this year. -
Environmental groups are sounding the alarm on various issues going into this year’s legislative session, and holding out hope for one area of potential bipartisanship. -
Tribes are still figuring out how to start and finish renewable energy projects amid the Trump administration freezing or eliminating federal dollars from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, which directed more than $720 million to Indian Country. -
As currently written, the proposed EPA rule would narrow the 1972 landmark law’s enforcement with estimates suggesting that 80% of the nation’s wetlands could be at risk. -
During this week’s annual conference of water users in Las Vegas, a pair of Arizona tribes inked a new proclamation in hopes of setting an example for how other Basin states could operate when it comes to conserving the Colorado River.
