The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe is petitioning for a dialysis building on tribal land and Medicaid dollars to hire health professionals as harmful side effects from diabetes and end stage renal disease continue to rise.
“In Indian Country across the nation, diabetes is one of the highest health disparities,” Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Chairman Manual Heart told The Journal. “Some of the tribes have (dialysis) facilities close to them, and some don’t.”
Heart is requesting the Indian Health Services build a bigger health care center on the reservation, based in Towaoc, that includes a dialysis clinic, or the expansion of the current health care center. He is also asking the state for Medicaid dollars to hire a health care professional to go to the homes of those on dialysis and check their vitals, do foot checks and help maintain the machines of those on home dialysis.
“The majority on dialysis are our elders,” Heart said. “But, we’re seeing younger tribal members go on dialysis. We’re just trying to get better service for dialysis patients.”
Today, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, which has a population of about 2,000 people, has 50 or more people on dialysis care. The number of people in need of dialysis is high, but DaVita Cortez Dialysis Center has limited availability.
“DaVita in Cortez is limited in how many seats they have,” Heart said.
Patients who are in dialysis care are in the end stages of renal disease and require dialysis or a transplant to live. Renal disease is often caused by diabetes. Dialysis patients normally have to receive dialysis three times per week for it to be effective.
Those who are unable to utilize DaVita’s dialysis services or have difficulty traveling to Cortez can do home dialysis, but Heart said that it is easier for patients to get an infection this way, because the machines can be difficult to clean.
DaVita’s website provided more insight into the diabetes and dialysis crisis on Native Americans nationwide.
While Native Americans only make up about 1.5% of the U.S. population, they have the highest rate of diabetes of any racial group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They also have one of the highest rates of end stage renal disease.
The rate of end stage renal disease among Native Americans with diabetes is six times higher than the rest of the population, and about 12.2% of Native Americans over 19 years old have Type 2 diabetes.
Additionally, the number of amputations has increased among dialysis patients on the reservation, something Heart said could be decreased with the aid of a medical professional who could do foot checks and provide education.
“If you don’t do foot exams, then if somebody has an infection, and it gets bigger, the first thing that will happen is amputation,” Heart said. “It’ll be toes, it’ll be a foot, it’ll be a leg. If we don’t really do prevention and education to tribal members, how to take care of themselves and eat properly, then we’re not helping them.”
The next steps are to go to the federal government, try to find construction dollars to expand or build a bigger clinic on tribal land and create legislation in support of the project, according to Heart.
For the Medicaid portion, there will be a state legislative process, and Heart said they are hoping to get that going by the end of this fall.
The tribe has an initiative called the Sleeping Ute Diabetes Prevention program that provides prevention and education for Type 2 diabetes and helps improve the quality of life for those on the reservation who already have the disease.
The director, Rita King, can be reached at (970) 564-5392 or rking@utemountain.org.
