The hospital in Crow Agency isn’t hurting for patients.
The campus of the Indian Health Service hospital, located among the collection of buildings housing the government offices for the Crow Tribe, has a parking lot that’s consistently full. As a full-service hospital, it offers some of the most comprehensive health care that members of the Crow and Northern Cheyenne can receive outside of Billings.
Despite the boon the hospital and its staff have been to the wellbeing of its Native American patients — who are among the most vulnerable in the country to chronic diseases — IHS has received a fraction of the funding required to meet the needs of its patients.
“Growing up, the IHS was all I’d ever known,” said Levi Black Eagle, secretary for the Crow Tribe’s executive branch. Black Eagle joined two other representatives in surveying Montana tribal members, with their efforts contributing to the latest budget