In early February, Mr. Biden signed a major disaster declaration for the Navajo Nation to provide more federal funding to support the distribution of vaccines, medical personnel and resources. Using the additional resources, Nez said the strain was able to administer 98 percent of the vaccine dose he was given.
Mr. Nez said he now would like to see the government age on infrastructure.
“Our roads, our bridges, our water lines, our electricity lines: here in the Navajo Nation, 30 to 40 percent of our people do not have running water, 30 to 40 percent of our people do not have electricity,” he said. “So if there’s going to be a big emphasis on infrastructure, we want Navajo Nation to get running water and electricity.”
Esther Lucero is the CEO of the Seattle Indian Health Board, a community health center that serves more than 6,000 urban American Indians and Alaska residents. She said she hopes to see significant investment in the current Native American public health system.
The Indian Health Service, based in Rockville, MD, consists of 26 hospitals, 56 health centers and 32 health stations. The hospitals range in size from four beds to 133. The agency is divided into a dozen service areas across the country, and each serves tribes living in the area.
The Indian health service has been underfunded, understaffed and regularly criticized for decades for providing inadequate care to the 2.2 million members of the tribal communities of the country. Its performance during the pandemic has been particularly criticized.
“We need to put together an aggressive budget formula to fully fund the Indian Health Service,” she said. Lucero said. The provision of additional funding to the twelve tribal epidemiological health centers, for example, has been key to maintaining and tracking health care data on their citizens, she said.
The intersection of federal land use and environmental and energy policies is also at the heart of the tribal agenda for the new government. Mr. Biden is facing requests to close the Dakota Access pipeline after a court ruled that the Trump administration violated the law when it was allowed. That would mean a victory for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which affects North and South Dakota. The pipeline crosses just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.