Please Watch My Video!
I contacted the main Great Plains IHS offices in Aberdeen, SD, regarding my continued issues with Lower Brule IHS and was informed that it was pretty much impossible to get any providers in trouble, especially in facilities as small as the one in Lower Brule, SD.
INDIGENOUS LIVES MATTER!
MY LIFE MATTERS! YOUR LIFE MATTERS!
Most importantly, OUR CHILDREN’S and GRANDCHILDREN’S LIVES MATTER!
As an enrolled member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, Indian Health Services is legally responsible to provide the highest quality of medical care, mental health services, prescription coverage, etc. by “whatever means necessary”. The most recent referral needed is to the Mayo Clinic.
The way I see it, this can play out one of two ways. You can either become part of the solution or you are part of the problem!
Avera Health
Avera St. Mary’s Hospital
Pierre, SD
Avera St. Mary’s Hospital, in Pierre, SD, has a horrible track record when it comes to providing quality healthcare for the local indigenous population, most of which are members of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. They will even go as far as altering medical records to try to cover their asses!
Want proof? Click the records button.
In most cases, St. Mary's Hospital will run the absolute minimum tests possible before discharging Native patients and recommending they follow up with their primary care providers. They are well aware that the closest IHS facilities for the three reservations in central South Dakota are an hour to an hour and a half drive from Pierre with good road conditions. They are also aware of the limited medical capabilities and resources at each of those IHS facilities.
IHS also dictates the level of care you receive from “their specialists”, and none of the specialists ever request your medical records for the referral. Check out Dr. Todd Zimprich, Avera Neurology, by clicking the Specialists link above. Once you pull the curtain back and see exactly what is happening behind the scenes, it is appalling!
LOWER BRULE INDIAN HEALTH SERVICES
This is the “IHS/Tribal Facility [that is] Available and Accessible” referenced in a letter I received from IHS refusing payment for medical care I received in Pierre, SD, for recurrent acute cellulitis ulcers. That facility is a one-hour drive southeast of Pierre.
Kyrstin Reimann-Doris, PA, is in the back row on the far right.
Kimm Schweitzer, CEO of Lower Brule IHS, is in the front row on the far left.
Tonya Jost, RN, is in the back row on the far left.
Kyrstin Reimann-Doris, PA, was my primary care person since I was forced to established care with Lower Brule Indian Health Services in October 2017. has had a profound effect on every aspect of my life, none of which are good. As my health continued to deteriorate at an alarming rate over the last seven years, Kyrstin, a PA at one of the smallest IHS facilities in the state of South Dakota, wrote off all of my new emerging symptoms and their progression as hypochondria allowing my degenerative neurological condition to progress unchecked.