S.E. Ruckman: Tribal members share frustrations on IHS care

As I watched, scores of elders hobbled in to the mid-morning meeting determined to find a seat. There were those who rolled in on wheelchairs and a wide berth opened for them. I saw those with amputated limbs, beaded walking canes, diabetic shoes and buzz cuts that come from chemotherapy.

A meeting of this kind had not really happened before. I’m not saying it has never happened because every now and then, a frustrated patient comes into the local health board meeting to plead awareness to a particular plight. But a strange confluence of events (and elders) seemed to be brewing here.

Comanche chairman Wallace Coffey called the meeting. Outside of southwest OK, few know that he became a widower when his wife, Debora, died recently of a particularly virulent type of cancer that was diagnosed by a physician at the Lawton Indian Hospital. Additionally, the vice-chairman of the Ft. Sill Apache Tribe, Lori Gooday Ware, just lost her brother to a heart attack who was also a patient at the facility.

A climate of recent loss hung over this meeting. Grief swirled around peppered with frustration and a dose of anger thrown in. Saying that IHS is a beleaguered organization is an understatement. Still, it’s quite remarkable that the existing circumstances of this facility have created a novel platform: The medical tell-all session.