West River Eagle

Cheyenne River Members




This means you and your rel­atives. Attention needs to be brought to the many issues of the Tribal Health Departments CEO and Behavioral Heath Director.

Issue: 1) Improper firing of a long time co-worker by chang­ing the locks on his door while off duty and not having the guts to sit down an visit with him about the allegations from the tribal member. What happened to the following the chains of command? You are all so eager to spit out tribal employees. This co-worker needs an apology from the Tribal Health Department and Tribal Health Committee Members, and he deserves proper honoring.

Issue: 2) All job openings should not require a Masters de­gree. How long does it take to do a dissertation? This one person has been trying since working for the tribe in 2005, at the tribe’s expense of administrative leave. When does administrative leave become abusive? All tribal mem­bers should have this done before or resign and go back to school.

Issue: 3) In 2004, the Tribal Health Director gave an order to Mental Health Director to de­stroy over 1,000 patient files. The Director did this then. Now when patients want certain documents for disability or other purposes, there is none to give.

Issue: 4) After all of the years working for the tribe, you cannot combine two programs into one umbrella. Alcohol/drug program and Behavioral Health aree are two different programs. Patient files are strictly confidential and should stay this way. I know I would not want certain staff members to look in my file at Behavioral Health, would you trust them?

Issue: 5) Requesting that the tribal council pass a resolution to audit all Tribal employees, including Directors, for admin­istrative, annual and sick leave. I know one Director is gone about 3/4 of the time and too busy traveling. In some departments, travel needs to be limited.

Lastly, I am retired now, but I run into a lot of our people who are in dire need of counseling, that need medications, have family members that need treat­ment or group home placements. But are reluctant to go to these programs because of trust issues with certain tribal directors or tribal employees. A lot of our people are still grieving over a nurse practitioner and now the psychologist is absence from work.

I direct these people in the right direction, hope that they get their needs met. I now see tribal programs in a different light. All tribal programs are in a huge round glass and we the people are looking from the outside in. Sometimes it is hard to get busi­Cheyenne ness done because on Fridays, ev­eryone is taking leave and when they appoint you to someone else in charge, they should make sure they know where they left off.

The Tribal Health Committee needs to stay out of the Hiring Board Committee. They pick and choose the applicants they want. There seems to be a lot of dic­tatorship going on in the Tribal Health Department and Tribal Health Committee members. Some council representatives sit on this committee and befriend their co-workers to get them­selves a higher position. Some have no clue how it works. One person who is working there with a Masters degree is still calling a previous employee and asking them how to do the job when a problem arises.

With the current Director of Behavioral Health, what is so confidential that issues are not being shared with the staff? They are the backbone of this program. This current director ran a program before and it was always in the red. It is like the blind leading the blind and it should not be allowed to happen. I as a tribal member want some change in our tribal programs. I want the tribe to move forward, not backwards.

Delilah Charger Eagle Butte, SD



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