A bipartisan group of senators He sent a letter The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., warning him to cut the agency could severely affect the health service of India (IHS).
The letter, delivered on Tuesday of the sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaaska), expressed concern about the ability of the IHS to take care of more than 2.8 million American and native Indians from Alaska.
In April, the HHS began to fire about 10,000 workers and consolidating 28 institutes and centers in 15 new divisions. Including the approximately 10,000 people who have stayed in recent months through early retirement or deferred resignation programs, HHS general personnel are expected to fall from 82,000 to around 62,000, or approximately a quarter of their workforce.
IHS has been exempt from employee employee reductions, but senators noticed that cuts to other agencies within the HHS that attend to the native communities are affecting IHS.
They added that contracting freezing is exacerbating existing critical personnel, including the need for laboratory technicians and administrative staff.
A small child walks towards the main door of the Indian Hospital of the Public Health Service in the Standing Rock Reserve in Fort Yates, ND, October 14, 2008.
Will Kincaid/AP
“We urge you to take immediate measures to ensure that IHS programs that serve the native communities have the necessary resources and personnel to meet their missions and stop any additional action that affects the provision of tribal medical care without first participating in a significant tribal consultation,” said the letter.
Merkley, Schatz and Murkowski also described in the letter how the American Indians and Alaska’s natives are an incredibly vulnerable population “that is left behind in almost all health metrics.”
In the National Health Interviews of 2023, administered by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): 21.8% of those that are identified as American or Native Indians of Alaska reported to be in fair or poor healthwhich was the highest rate observed between any racial or ethnic group.
NCHS data shows that American Indians and Alaska natives are disproportionately affected By diabetes, angina, which is chest pain caused by the blood flow reduced to the heart, and disability.
In addition, American Indians and Alaska natives have the lowest life expectancy of any racial or ethnic group in the United States with an average expectation of 67.9 years from 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Native communities deserve reliable access to quality medical care, and we urge you to reassess all actions that endanger the provision of medical care services for American and native Alaska Indians,” the senators wrote.
The HHS did not immediately respond to the request for ABC News comments
Cheyenne Haslett of ABC News and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
