Since becoming President Donald Trump’s health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spent a lot of time in Arizona. His latest stop in the Valley came on Wednesday while visiting the Gila River Indian Community.
He rattled off accomplishments a year into Trump’s second term.
During the annual Tribal Self-Governance Conference, Kennedy briefly took the main stage at Wild Horse Pass. The Gila River Indian Community has been hosting this days-long, national gathering for three years running now.
“We’re going to make Indian Country healthy again,” said Kennedy on Wednesday, while also claiming “I made more trips to Indian Country in a single year than any other HHS secretary in history.”
From the Phoenix metro to the Four Corners, the Cabinet member has taken trips to meet with the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, Ak-Chin Indian Community and Navajo Nation — to name a few.
In his speech, Kennedy touted making progress on key issues like food sovereignty, chronic disease and federal dietary guidelines. He along with the USDA literally flipped the food pyramid upside down. The Indian Health Service — or IHS — even created one that was translated into the Diné language.
Tackling staffing shortages and aging infrastructure across the entire IHS system was another talking point. This federal agency falls under Kennedy’s purview. The secretary himself, personally rescinded layoffs for roughly 950 IHS employees last year.
Now, Kennedy shares they’ve launched the “largest hiring effort in IHS history.”
“We are targeting high-need roles and high-need locations,” Kennedy explained. “We will recruit physicians, nurses, behavioral health professionals and support staff — and we will retain them.”
Yet the defunct DOGE — or Department of Government Efficiency — terminated a dozen leases for IHS facilities. This decision was seen as a costs-saving measure to shore up funds tied into federal office space.
Still, Kennedy seems keen on improving hospitals and clinics.
“Over the past year, I visited tribal facilities across the country and saw that scale of the need firsthand,” he added. “IHS hospitals are more than three times older than the national average, and that’s not acceptable.”
According to data gathered by Big Local News at Stanford University’s Journalism and Democracy Initiative, the U.S. cancelled 121 IHS contracts totaling more than $8.3 million last year alone.
“As HHS secretary, I do not treat this as a passive responsibility. I make this a priority for my administration,” said Kennedy, “and I will treat it as a solemn duty and act on it every day.”
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