The Indian Health Service had a problem. Fed up with substandard care, one of the two pueblos whose federal funding helped support the health service’s Acoma-Cañoncito-Laguna hospital in Acoma Pueblo, N.M., decided to take its share of the hospital’s budget and start its own independently run clinic. In effect, the health service was caught between the desire of one constituency to take control of its own health care and the need of another to keep a well-established hospital operating. In the end, it slashed services at the hospital in November, closing its inpatient critical care unit, women’s services and emergency room. But the changes nonetheless affect two tribes lacking full access to health care in the middle of a pandemic.

Source: New York Times January 03, 2021 09:56 UTC