Washington, D.C. – Since 2007, National Native HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is observed each year on the first day of Spring.
The day began as a way to increase local and global awareness about the impact of HIV/AIDS on American Indian and Alaska Native people.
“The HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to affect all of our communities, including American Indians and Alaska Natives. While we are seeing lower rates of new infections within these communities, we must continue to ensure that the culturally and linguistically-competent education, counseling, testing and care are available to all,” said Congresswoman Barbara Lee, co-chair of the Congressional HIV/AIDS Caucus.
“HIV/AIDS is a rising threat to our native populations; Tribal and Indian Health priority must be increased access to HIV screening and consistent education efforts for everyone,” said Gayle Dine’Chacon, MD, Medical Director at the Pueblo of Sandia Health Center and Former Surgeon General of the Navajo Nation.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 18.9 percent of the American Indians and Alaska Natives living with HIV are undiagnosed. This undiagnosed rate is significantly greater than the overall average of 14 percent.
“This National Native HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, I encourage everyone to get educated and tested. It’s on us to take our health in our own hands,” added Congresswoman Lee.
A cancer treatment clinic is under construction on the first floor, lower left, at the Trans-Pacific Trade Center, 3700 Pacific Highway East in Fife. LUI KIT WONG — Staff photographer
Cancer, beware. A new player has joined the fight.
The Puyallup Tribe of Indians has purchased the Seattle Cancer Treatment & Wellness Center, a Renton clinic owned by Cancer Treatment Centers of America. The tribe will move the operation to Fife.
The new facility — at the Trans-Pacific Trade Center at 3700 Pacific Highway E. — will offer traditional and alternative methods of treatment to native and non-native patients.
“If there’s any way to fight this disease, we’ll do it,” said Puyallup Tribe Chairman Bill Sterud during a recent tour of the building.
“This may be the most important thing I’ve been involved with,” said Alan Shelton, clinical director and a veteran medical adviser with the tribe.
“We’re not saying conventional medicine is no good,” he said. “We want to include that.”
According to the tribe, this will be the “first tribal-owned cancer care center in Indian Country and the United States.”
The facility will initially occupy part of the building’s first floor and will be known as the Salish Integrative Oncology Care Center.
BEGINNINGS
As Shelton tells the story, Cancer Treatment Centers of America had been trying, unsuccessfully, to secure approval to build a hospital in the Puget Sound area.
The company contacted the tribe, Shelton said, with an idea to build a facility on reservation or trust land controlled by the tribe.
Shelton recalls something Sterud said during a tour of a CTCA hospital in Arizona some two years ago.
“We can do this,” Sterud said.
“I felt we could do it by ourselves,” Sterud said last week. “There’s always room for another place to fight cancer.”
The tribe will not reveal the price paid to buy the CTCA operation. Records from the Pierce County Auditor’s Office indicate the tribe bought the Trans-Pacific Trade Center in June 2014 for $11.9 million. The tribe has paid for the project with revenues from various tribal enterprises, including profits earned by the Emerald Queen Casino.
The tribe will host an opening ceremony April 7, and doors will open to patients April 13.
Treatments will be offered on an outpatient basis only and will combine traditional chemotherapy and other, alternative therapies.
“We have a strong ancestral bond with nature and creation,” Sterud stated in a news release announcing the center.
“We believe that natural healing through traditional roots, berries, herbs and traditional healing can blend with modern oncology practices. We are building upon traditional oncology — chemotherapy, radiation and other pharmaceutical treatments — with whole person integrative medicine, such as naturopathy, Native American treatments, acupuncture and Chinese medicine,” he said.
DETAILS
Kim Sunner, slated to act as administrator at SIOCC, said last week that many details are still being identified and solved.
“There’s a lot of things up in the air right now,” she said.
She said she expects perhaps 17 employees to join the Fife operation after working in Renton. Positions in Fife include physicians, naturopaths, nurses and nurse practitioners, and pharmacy workers, technicians and administrative support staff.
She said there has been outreach to current patients, including focus groups, and that the reaction has been generally positive.
She said the new clinic will likely be able to accept more insurance programs than were available to patients in Renton, and that contracts with insurance carriers were still being negotiated.
Shelton was in the Washington, D.C., area last week to discuss details with the Indian Health Service, and he said in a phone interview that he expected eligible patients would be able to use Medicare and Medicare coverage to help bear the cost of treatment.
For the tribe, the clinic will be a nonprofit enterprise, he said.
Sunner noted that as many as 85 percent of patients at the Renton clinic were living with a diagnosis of at least Stage 4 cancer. She said she hoped eventually to be able to provide care to patients living at all levels of diagnoses.
“I really hope we have the opportunity to serve patients at an earlier stage,” she said.
Subir Mukerjee, Fife city manager, said last week of the new clinic, “We welcome it. It’s a good medical facility in our community. Having a medical facility is always a good thing. It adds a mix of use, not just retail. It adds to easier access to medical facilities for our residents.”
The American Cancer Society, in the “Native American Healing” section of its website, says that “the communal support provided by this approach to health care can have some worthwhile physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits.”
“Although Native American healing has not been proven to cure disease, individual reports suggest that it can reduce pain and stress and improve quality of life. The communal and spiritual support provided by this type of healing could have helpful effects.
“Like other complementary therapies, Native American healing practices may be used in relieving certain symptoms of cancer and side effects of cancer treatment,” according to the website. “People with cancer and other chronic conditions should talk to their doctors before using purification rituals or herbal remedies.”
PHILOSOPHY
“We’ll have physicians working side-by-side with naturopaths, acupuncturists, traditional healers. These people meet as a team,” Shelton said. “We’re very interested in having not just the conventional medicine, but also spirit work. The team will refer patients needing radiation therapy or surgery to local hospitals or specialists.”
Osteopathic residents from the Puyallup tribal clinic might also rotate through the facility, he said.
“There’s just a general feeling that this is special, needed, wanted,” he said. “Everybody knows somebody who has suffered from cancer. If there is a better way, we want to explore it. We expect that in Indian Country there will be a lot of people interested in this.”
“With the success of our facility, I would hope to see other tribes join the fight against cancer,” Sterud said. “This is a head-on attack. It makes me proud. It makes me happy. It also makes me emotional. It might save a life, or two, or 1,200. If we save one life, that’s a giant success.”
Sterud said he sees the clinic as a tribute to other struggles, other “battles that our elders fought in years past. Our success is based on their endurance in dealing with adversity. It’s an honor to be able to bring a cancer treatment center to the public in their memory.”
“I’ve had this vision for a long time,” he said. “The tribal council has been nothing but supportive, and all the staff, and the membership. It’s almost like it’s been blessed. Everything seems to be working out.”
Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2015/03/12/3685165_puyallup-tribe-buys-seattle-area.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
In October 2014, high school freshman Jaylen Fryberg shot five students and then himself in Washington state. To help cope with this tragedy in their community, a group of teenage girls jumped to action.
Chloe Westphal, Marina Stepanov, Stephanie Lopez, Genesis Saucedo and Amanda Arellano, who are all students at Tri-Tech Skills Center in Kennewick, Wash., designed an app to help teens manage stress and deal with depression as a result of the shooting. Called Safe and Sound, the app features a journal for users to express their thoughts and descriptions about different kinds of anxiety and depression and their corresponding symptoms.
In an email to The Huffington Post, one of the students explained that the idea for the app was in reaction to Fryberg’s actions.
“The Seattle Times did an article on how he [Fryberg] had been posting his feelings to Twitter for months with no one really listening,” Chloe said. “This sad example of how serious the situation can get really motivated us to create an app that could prevent this kind of thing in the future.”
Safe and Sound went on to win the Verizon Innovative App Challenge, which means its designers will meet with Massachusetts Institute of Technology trainers in a few weeks to build the app.
Though the project started as a submission in a competition, the students have bigger plans for the finished product. Amanda said the team wants Safe and Sound to go beyond the typical apps teens use today.
“Our hope is that Safe and Sound will be more than just a stress management app, but a light in the darkness that is anxiety and depression.”
The landing page of the new community recovery team website reads: “We’re All in This Together”. The website is the product of a joint collaboration between the Tulalip Tribes, City of Marysville, and the Marysville School District.
The purpose of the website is to provide stakeholders across the Marysville and Tulalip communities with a common place to find information and resources on healing, hosted events, trainings and details on the larger recovery efforts in the aftermath of the tragic murder/suicide that occurred at the Marysville-Pilchuck High School campus on October 24, 2014.
Since the tragedy, the Tribes, City, School District, and the Marysville and Tulalip leaders, community members, and members in the field of post-trauma events have been meeting regularly to plan and coordinate efforts for the Marysville and Tulalip communities. Through this work, a Community Recovery Team developed and is comprised of members from all three entities including area-wide representation from Victims Support Services, the Ministerial Association, Volunteers of America, American Red Cross, Marysville YMCA, United Way of Snohomish County, and so many more who have come together in support of our youth and communities. The work of the committee has included coordinating trainings, providing resources, holding community meetings, and providing support for the families and victims of the tragedy and others. The website will now consolidate all the information generated by this team into a single website for community members to access.
The website is shared by the Tribes, the City, and the District, and will be updated regularly with new information and events as they are scheduled, resources, and other pertinent information.
Governor Jay Inslee gives sobering statistics for Washington youth
Snohomish County Health District
SNOHOMISH COUNTY, Wash. – At a press conference Thursday morning, Governor Jay Inslee released preliminary data from the 2014 Healthy Youth Survey in which 23 percent of Washington’s high school seniors reported using e-cigarettes. Furthermore, high school sophomores were vaping at twice the rate of regular cigarettes. This represents a significant increase in e-cigarette use since the 2012 survey.
“What we’re seeing is alarming,” said Dr. Gary Goldbaum, health officer and director at the Snohomish Health District. “The companies marketing these products are zeroing in on youth with ads featuring celebrities and other social media campaigns telling them that vaping is cool and safe. These are dangerous messages to send to our kids.”
Electronic cigarettes, also known as e-cigarettes or vaping devices, represent a market that has grown exponentially since they were first introduced in mid-2000s. They are typically equipped with a battery, an atomizer, and a cartridge for liquid nicotine. There are more than 400 different brands of e-cigarettes and the liquid nicotine comes in more than 7,000 flavors, all of which can be purchased online. The devices can also be used with marijuana, heroin, and other drugs.
The devices are not regulated by the Federal Drug Administration, so manufacturers are not required to disclose product ingredients. In addition to the nicotine, vaping may expose users and by-standers to harmful toxins like lead and formaldehyde. It will take decades to fully understand long-term effects of e-cigarettes and exposure to vaporized nicotine and other drugs.
“Nicotine is nicotine, regardless if smoked or vaped. We can’t afford to let years go by before acting to protect teens from a lifetime of health problems,” said Goldbaum. “This is a drug that the U.S. Surgeon General has noted is just as addictive as cocaine and heroin. We need to do more to protect our children–it’s critical that our legislators do what is in their power to keep these harmful devices off limits to Washington’s youth.” A bill is currently under consideration during this legislative session. If approved, it would require retailers obtain licensing for the sale of vaping devices, prohibit internet sales, ensure child-safe packaging, and restrict marketing and sales activities targeted at youth. It would also impose a tax on vaping products that would be on par with other addictive substances like alcohol and tobacco. Taxing tobacco products has proven to be one of the most effective strategies to reduce the use of harmful and addicting substances, particularly among youth.
The final 2014 Healthy Youth Survey data and reports will be released by the Washington State Department of Health next month.
Snohomish Health District works for a safer and healthier community through disease prevention, health promotion, and protection from environmental threats. To read more about the District and for important health information, visit www.snohd.org.
OKLAHOMA CITY — While state leaders remain steadfastly opposed to a Medicaid expansion offered under the federal health care law, some of Oklahoma’s 39 federally recognized Native American tribes are exploring opportunities for a federal waiver that could mean health insurance for about 40,000 low-income uninsured tribal members.
Oklahoma Health Care Authority CEO Nico Gomez said talks are underway about seeking an expansion of the state’s Insure Oklahoma program to include some of the estimated 80,000 Native Americans in Oklahoma without health insurance. Gomez estimated as many as half of those tribal citizens could qualify for the program, depending on where the income threshold is set.
Although still conceptual, Gomez said the idea would involve the tribal citizen paying a portion of the health insurance premium, the tribe paying a portion, and the federal government paying the largest part.
“We’re not looking at tapping into any state revenue, not now or in the future,” Gomez said. “Frankly, if it required any state revenue, I’m not sure we’d even be having this conversation.”
Gomez said the proposal was initially discussed last week with tribal representatives, and that he plans to brief members of the Health Care Authority’s governing board during its regular meeting on Thursday. Some of the state’s largest tribes, including the Chickasaw and Cherokee nations, are involved in discussions, Gomez said.
Insure Oklahoma provides health coverage to about 18,000 low-income Oklahoma residents, mostly through a program in which the cost of premiums are shared by the state (60 percent), the employer (25 percent) and the employee (15 percent). The state portion of the program is funded through a tax on tobacco sales, but a federal waiver that allows the program to operate has only been approved through the end of the year.
Gomez said expanding the program to include a tribal option could help ensure the federal waiver continues.
Billy James, a 31-year-old University of Oklahoma student and a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, said he wants to have health insurance but can’t afford the premiums.
“I’m trying to hold out as long as I can,” said James, who is finishing his master’s degree and currently unemployed. “I’m kind of scared about not having insurance, but I’ve got to tough it out a little while longer.”
A spokesman for Gov. Mary Fallin, a staunch supporter of the Insure Oklahoma program, said the governor is excited about the potential of a tribal expansion.
“We’re particularly excited about the fact that it would not cost the state any tax dollars, which is important as we deal with our current shortfall,” Fallin spokesman Alex Weintz said.
Currently, there are about 130,000 Native Americans in the state’s Medicaid program, which is about 16 percent of the overall Medicaid population in Oklahoma.
FARMINGTON — The acting head of the Indian Health Service has highlighted the federal agency’s proposed 2016 funding to provide health care services to Native Americans.
During a teleconference on Thursday, Acting IHS Director Yvette Roubideaux outlined the proposed budget for the agency, which is included in the proposed $4 trillion federal budget announced this week by President Barack Obama.
The IHS is an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It provides health care services to approximately 2.2 million American Indians and Alaska Natives through more than 650 hospitals, clinics and health stations on or near reservation lands.
The proposed budget for the IHS would total $5.1 billion, which is an increase of $461 million from the fiscal year 2015 budget, Roubideaux reported.
Among the funding proposals Roubideaux mentioned is $718 million for contract support costs. She noted that the budget proposes mandatory appropriation for contract support costs starting in 2017.
The budget proposes a $70 million increase to the Purchased/Referred Care Program, which pays for health care services obtained from the private sector or for services not available by the IHS.
A total of $185 million has been requested to provide funding for construction projects listed under the Health Care Facilities Construction Priority List.
Under the proposal, about $20.5 million would be used for the facility design and to start construction of the Dilkon Alternative Rural Health Center in Dilkon, Ariz.
Funding would also be used to complete construction of the Gila River Southeast Health Center in Chandler, Ariz., and to start the construction of the Salt River Northeast Health Center in Scottsdale, Ariz., and the Rapid City Health Center in Rapid City, S.D.
The budget proposes that $115 million be allocated for the Division of Sanitation Facilities Construction, which supplies water, sewage disposal and solid waste disposal facilities to homes.
The budget proposes an annual appropriation of $150 million for the next three years for the Special Diabetes Program for Indians, which started in 1997 and provides diabetes prevention, awareness, education and care programs to IHS, tribal and urban facilities.
Joining Roubideaux for the teleconference was Jodi Gillette, special assistant to the president for Native American Affairs, who said the president’s approach to funding the programs and services that address Indian Country were outlined during the 2014 White House Tribal Nations Conference.
She noted that last year, the president and first lady Michelle Obama visited the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Nation in North Dakota.
During their visit, they heard from young tribal members who shared stories about dealing with social issues like alcoholism, poverty and suicide.
In response to that visit, a new initiative focusing on Native American young people — Generation Indigenous — was launched, Gillette said.
Investments to start Generation Indigenous were included in the proposed IHS budget, including $25 million to expand the Methamphetamine and Suicide Prevention Initiative.
That funding would go toward increasing the number of child and adolescent behavioral health professionals working to provide direct services to Native youth.
Another $50 million has been requested within the Health and Human Services Department to start the Tribal Behavioral Health Initiative for Native Youth.
Noel Lyn Smith covers the Navajo Nation for The Daily Times. She can be reached at 505-564-4636 and nsmith@daily-times.com. Follow her @nsmithdt on Twitter.
By Lorraine Loomis, Chair, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
Gov. Jay Inslee wants to change the cancer risk rate used to set state water quality standards from one in one million to one in 100,000. That is unacceptable to the treaty Indian tribes in western Washington. We refuse to accept this tenfold increase in the risk of getting cancer from known cancer-causing toxins, and you should, too.
The cancer risk rate, along with the fish consumption rate, are key factors in determining how clean our waters must be to protect our health. The more fish we eat, the cleaner the waters must be.
Water quality standards are supposed to protect those who need protection the most: children, women of childbearing age, Indians, Asian and Pacific Islanders, sport fishermen, and anyone else who eats local fish and shellfish. When the most vulnerable among us is protected, so is everyone else.
The federal Clean Water Act requires that states develop water quality standards to ensure our waters are clean enough to provide healthy fish that are safe for us to eat. But the state has been operating under outdated and inadequate water quality standards developed more than 20 years ago, and has missed every deadline since then for updating the standards as required by federal law. The state admits that its current water quality standards don’t adequately protect any of us.
Under his plan, Inslee would correctly increase the fish consumption rate from a ridiculously low 6.5 grams per day (about one bite) to 175 grams per day, the same protective rate as Oregon’s. But he would effectively cancel out that improvement by decreasing our protection under the cancer risk rate.
Further complicating matters, Inslee ties development of the new state water quality standards to a $12 million statewide toxics reduction program that will require legislative approval. That is unlikely given the $2 billion state budget shortfall.
Inslee’s proposal would also require the Legislature to grant the Department of Ecology more authority to regulate toxic chemicals. That is also highly unlikely given the Legislature’s historic reluctance to grant Ecology more power to control chemicals in our environment.
The plan also calls for revising standards for 167 chemicals that the Clean Water Act requires states to monitor in our lakes, rivers and marine waters. But standards for 58 of those – including cancer-causing chemicals like dioxins and PCBs – will stay the same.
At its core, Inslee’s plan does more to preserve the status quo than result in any real improvement to our water quality standards. It is a political solution to a human health issue. The concept of a larger toxics reduction program to tackle pollutants at the source is a good one, but it is not an acceptable substitute for strong water quality rules. We should have both.
We know that Inslee and previous governors have struggled with updating the state’s water quality rules for decades because of complaints by industry that new water quality rules could increase their cost of doing business. But an economy built on pollution cannot be sustained.
Fortunately, at the request of the tribes, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said it will step in to develop new standards this year if the state is unable.
EPA Regional Administrator Dennis McLerran announced in December that the agency will keep a close eye on the progress – or lack of progress – of the state’s effort to update our water quality standards. The agency has begun a rulemaking process in parallel with the state effort now under way. If the state develops standards acceptable to EPA, the agency will pause and work with the state to finalize the new standards. If the state is unable, EPA will continue its process and adopt new standards for the state.
This promise by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Regional Administrator McLerran demonstrates true leadership. They clearly recognize the federal government’s trust responsibility to protect the health and treaty rights of the tribes, which also benefits everyone else who lives here.
We appreciate EPA’s willingness to protect the integrity of our state’s environment and water-based resources that are central to human health and treaty rights. We hope the state will step up before EPA has to step in to make sure our water quality standards protect all of us.
