AP: Indians face health clinic crunch

March 8, 2007, 3:16AM
AP: Indians face health clinic crunch

By GARANCE BURKE Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

FRESNO, Calif. — After Vera Quiroga, an American Indian elder, was turned away from a clinic she helped found in Santa Barbara, she has been forced to drive to a far-off reservation to get her teeth cleaned.

The reason she said is that the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs doesn't recognize the 82-year-old as a Yaqui, even though her children and grandchildren have tribal documentation.

"They said if you don't have federal paperwork you can't get service anymore," said Quiroga.

While federal law requires taxpayer-funded tribal clinics to serve all patients of Indian ancestry, some have recently stopped admitting those who can't document their federal tribal status, patients and clinic officials tell The Associated Press.
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In Boston, workers at the North American Indian Center said they were told not to treat the Mashpee Wampanoag of Cape Cod, whose ancestors shared Thanksgiving dinner with the Pilgrims. But they were allowed to keep offering free health services to the tribe's members after they read the text of the 1976 law to their federal funders.

"We actually got requests from IHS to deny service to the Mashpees," said Barbara Namias, who oversees community health programs at the Boston clinic. "We had to refer them back to the legislation."
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4612003.html

I find this interesting considering just tuesday there was a story about how the Cherokee's are no longer allowing the Freemen to be part of their tribe. Sighting cost for health care as the reason.