Chandler, Ariz. Chandler, Aric (AP) – Health Minister Robert F. Kennedy Junior. Take time in tribal societies in the state of Arizona and New Mexico this week while highlighting the ways they are trying to prevent chronic disease Between the indigenous Americans and Alaska citizens, something he said is one of his higher priorities.
But Kennedy does not appear to publicly address an original health program using traditional medicine and foods to treat incompatible conditions such as diabetes and liver disease. The program, which is called health tribes, was destroyed this month Federal health layoff.
Some indigenous leaders say they are facing a problem in the perception of Kennedy’s words and his actions. With a little information, they wonder whether health tribes are part of the Trump administration’s efforts to end the efforts of diversity, fairness and integration. There is also confusion about What do you leave? In the 11 -year -old program, which was part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under Kennedy, and received $ 32.5 million annually.
Tribal leaders and health officials told the Associated Press that the discounts in the Tribal Health Program Violation of the legal commitment to the federal governmentOr trust in responsibility, for tribal states under treaties, law and other actions. This includes the financing of health care through Indian health services, as well as public education and safety for the 574 recognized tribal citizens.
However, federal funding has not been less than those needs, leaving tribal governments to rely on granting and additional programs such as health tribes.
Unaoa Miller, a citizen of the Indian Nation of Kukan and the Director of Public Health for the Southern and Eastern tribes, which serves 33 hat in the United States, said that its organization has already received two million dollars in the health tribes, which serves 33 hat in the United States regions that its organization had already received two million dollars in the sound tribes: “Many communications layers have been suspended in cooperation and partnerships.”
Several tribal facilities have received an email from an employee at the Disease Control Center on April 1 to notify them that the sites of many people who worked in the health tribes program were eliminated “as part of limiting efforts in CDC”.
More than 30 jobs for the civil employee employee were or eliminated. This includes 11 jobs in the Health Tribes Program and others in the Population Health Department.
An email message was sent to the account of the director of health tribes, Dr. Juliana Reese, a registered member of Navajo Nation, with an automatic response: “Due to the last HHS reduction in strength, I was placed on an administrative leave and will be separated from the agency on June 2.” REECE did not respond to suspension requests sent to federal and personal email accounts.
Part of government unrest in the past few weeks includes senior officials in the national health institutes that are transferred to Indian health services offices away from Washington, DC, and the National Council of Indian Health also said that the government canceled the main employees and programs in the assistant minister’s office to the Population Center for Population.
The government is required to consult the tribes in the decisions that affect them, such as the demobilization of the collective workers in February in the Indian health service that was canceled after hours, and the tribal leaders warned of the Trump administration that these consultations do not happen. In some cases, tribes can take legal action against the United States for their failure to meet the responsibilities of confidence.
“It is a violation of confidence, undoubtedly,” said W. Ron Allen, head of the Jamestown Skellam tribe in Washington State.
The US Department of Health and Humanitarian Services did not answer the questions related to the discounts of health tribes, but it told AP in an email that the Indian health service was not affected by the workforce discounts for this month and there are no plans to unify any of its offices.
Kennedy’s swinging through the southwest included a visit to the Community Health Center in the Phoenix metro that provides physical and mental health care to the indigenous people and raised with the president of Navajo Nation. I also manage a committee at the Tribal Self -Government Conference, which was held in the Indian River Gila River Reserve in Arizona, but he did not take questions from the public or tribal leaders on the stage or journalists.
Allen said he had a constructive conversation with Kennedy, to remind him that IHS suffers from a lack of financing and assault in employees and that the tribes depend on the granting and additional federal programs.
“Your problem is to reduce the central office, so we are well, but transferring the jobs that serve tribes to the tribes,” Allen said. “Because if we do not have these resources, how will we make our societies healthy? He agrees.”
Research indicates that the indigenous Americans have an average life expectancy of other ethnic groups, and the Indian health service says they are facing higher death rates such as diabetes and liver disease.
In Seattle, the tribal funds are paid to a program called Gather, which focuses on integrating traditional tribal medicine practices into health care. Seattle Service Providers in Seattle can use drugs made of plants grown in a community garden. The traditional or processor traditional trainee is part of the patient’s care team.
The chair of the Indian Health Board of Health in Seattle, Esther Luciro, a descendant of Navago Club, said that her employees meet people from the Center for Disease Control and other donors to all healthy tribes to discuss project updates and ensure compliance with grants. But after the workers’ demobilization last week, they face a problem in contact with anyone.
“If you can’t actually manage dollars, how will you actually get programs?” She said. “With this current administration, it is similar to almost every day, we receive an unexpected notice, and then we will get a follow -up notice that says … you need to move forward as usual.”
Los Angeles, Los Angeles, has chanted Los Angeles, fears about the mysterious and somewhat confusing messages. Its organization uses health tribal funds to enhance ties between youth and elderly in the original American societies and Alaska.
She said that the indigenous societies had to retract the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce programs that can be considered Dei initiatives, with the help of lawyers, politics experts and eucalyys who refer to the areas where the government may not lie responsible for confidence.
“There is a distinctive political force,” said Ortega, a citizen of the Indian Kokanic tribe, but “there are political makers who see the tribes as a threat and not a partner.”
Stephen Rowa Lewis, the governor of the Indian Jella River community, said that he told Kennedy to be separately that consulting with respectable partnerships and participating in the tribes is essential to achieving the responsibilities of confidence in the federal government.
Since the Trump administration began to make huge discounts for the federal workforce, many tribal leaders were forced to clarify the newly appointed federal officials that services to the tribes are not based on race but on the political situation of tribal countries.
“I made it clear, we are not Di – as tribal countries, as a political entity,” he said.
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Boss mentioned Jackson, Mississippi, and a massacre of Juno, Alaska. The Associated Press Terry Tang in Phoenix and Mike Stop contributed to New York.
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