- Image by stillthedudeabides via Flickr
Spend a little time on the Rosebud or Pine Ridge Indian Reservations in South Dakota and the poverty, joblessness, and lack of health care will be known almost immediately.
The Rosebud Indian Reservation is located in south-central South Dakota, located approximately 180 miles from Rapid City, and 220 miles from Sioux Falls, the nearest towns of any size that have doctors with any kind of specialty degrees.
Many Natives that live in this part of the country are forced to take their prescription discount card hundreds of miles just to see a doctor. That is, of course, if they have insurance. With unemployment rates near 85 percent, insurance is a thing often dreamed about, but not something most people have.
Indian Health Services does provide free medical care on reservations like these, but the wait just to see a doctor can sometimes be an all-day affair, and multiple hours at the very least. Many horror stories exist of people going to the doctor with a broken limb or a severe case of pneumonia, only to wait all day just to see a doctor.
With health problems like diabetes and heart-disease at record levels on these reservations, seeing a doctor regularly would be ideal, but a lack of doctors in these rural areas means there is just not enough warm bodies to go around to see everyone that is ailing.
Native Americans, like a lot of people across the Unites States, are dealing with record levels of obesity. Finding a gym with appropriate treadmills and elliptical machines is not always easy. Some reservations, like the Rosebud, have facilities that are equipped with exercise machines, but people living on the far reaches of the Reservation have very little access, or the capability of driving 50 miles just to use a gym.
Without proper medical attention, these problems will likely continue or worsen.
