Porcupine Clinic, located in the small community of
Porcupine, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Oglala
Lakota [Sioux] Reservation is out of heat.
According to Stella White Eyes, Administrative
Assistant for the Clinic, the Clinic has closed its
doors until it can find resources to fund their
heating costs.
Porcupine Clinic is the only independent Indian
community-controlled health clinic in the United
States. It is not connected with the Federal Indian
Health Services (IHS) program and is funded
primarily by grants and donations. Unfortunately,
those resources have become exceptionally rare this
year.
Porcupine Clinic opened its doors in 1992 and serves
the entire Reservation as well as the Porcupine
District in which it is located. Patients are
billed according to their ability to pay and many
patients, including low-income Elders and children,
receive free health care there.
In 2004, the Porcupine Clinic opened its dialysis
unit, saving countless lives of those diabetic
patients who could not journey 120 miles away to
Rapid City for needed dialysis treatment several
times a week. The only other dialysis treatment
available on the 11,000 square mile (2.7 million
acres) Reservation is located in the small IHS
Hospital in the community of Pine Ridge. But that
facility hosts only a handful of dialysis beds, is
up to 100 miles away from the more remote areas of
the Reservation, and is completely unable to treat
the vast need of the entire Reservation.
Recent statistics state that the diabetes rate on
Pine Ridge is 800% that of the National average and
the life expectancy rate is 52 to 58 years old. It
is said that 55% of the adults on Pine Ridge over
the age of 40 have diabetes.
Ms. White Eyes states that the Clinic has been
unable to pay their annual propane tank rental fees
of $245 (for both the Clinic and dialysis unit
tanks) or for the propane to fill them. They have
three tanks: a thousand gallon tank which services
the main clinic and two five hundred gallon tanks
servicing the dialysis unit. The minimum propane
delivery from their provider, Western Cooperative (WESTCO)
out of Chadron and Hay Springs, Nebraska, is $360.
If all the tanks were filled, at $1.69 per gallon,
it would cost well over $3,000. Further, that will
need to happen more than once this winter. While
the dialysis unit helps to fund at least part of its
own propane use, the Clinic is out of funding now,
just as winter is approaching fast.
Harvey Iron Boy, Porcupine District Vice President
and Head Man, spoke of the vital role that the
Clinic plays in the local district as well as the
Reservation as a whole. Not only are the health
care services, bi-lingual assistance, diabetic
education, and dialysis treatments all meeting
critical needs on the Reservation but there are more
basic needs met by the Clinic as well. He pointed
out that locals often come into the Clinic simply to
get warm on days when they have no heat in their own
homes.
Ms. White Eyes has contacted various non-profits and
assistance organizations but has largely gone
unanswered. Link Center Foundation, a small
all-volunteer non-profit organization out of
Longmont, Colorado, was contacted this week and was
also unable to help. With their own heating
assistance program for the elders and disabled on
the Reservation struggling due to lack of donations,
there simply was no funding available to help the
Clinic.
However, Audrey Link, Founder/President of the Link
Center Foundation
(
www.LinkCenterFoundation.org
), personally paid the $245 out of her own pocket
for the annual tank rental fees for the Porcupine
Clinic and dialysis unit on Friday. Largely retired
and on limited income herself, Link stated that “She
couldn’t go to sleep tonight if she thought the
dialysis patients and Clinic were going to lose
their propane tanks. At least now, if they can
raise any money at all elsewhere, they can use the
money for propane to fill them.”
Anyone wishing to donate towards propane fuel for
the Porcupine Clinic may do so directly to the
propane company. Please contact:
Loretta at Western Cooperative (WESTCO)
170 Bordeaux St – Chadron, NE 69337-2342
Call Toll Free 800-762-9906
Credit Card and Bank Card donations by phone will be
accepted. Small donations are also welcome and will
accumulate until the minimum delivery has been
reached and then the company will make a delivery of
propane to the Clinic. Please clearly mark any
donation “For Porcupine Clinic.”
Donations may also be sent directly to the Clinic.
For more information, please contact:
Porcupine Clinic
Stella White Eyes, Administrative Assistant
P.O. Box 99 – Porcupine, SD 57772
Phone: 605-867-5655
Note: Due to lack of heat, there may or may not be
anyone available to answer the phone at the Clinic
at this time. Please leave a message.
This article may be reprinted, reproduced, and/or
re-distributed unedited with proper attribution and
sourcing for non-profit, educational, news, or
archival purposes.
