Among the tension around the cuts, HHS Kennedy meets the tribal leader

At the moment when health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He was to enter the stage, the governor of the Indian community Gila River was still on the podium, expressing his anxiety around the recent movements of the Trump administration.

“Let me repeat it: we spent a significant part of this year, ensuring education why tribes have a political status that is not dei,” said governor Stephen Roe Lewis to a room with 1,200 people who clap and cheered.

When it comes to cuts sought after by the so -called government department: “We need a scalpel, not an approach to seeing the chain to make these changes,” he said.

Gila River Wild Horse Pass Resort and Casino in Chandler, Arizona, belonging to two tribes, was the latest stop at Make American Robust Connerowa of Mr. Kennedy after three south -western states. Mr. Kennedy was to organize “Chat Fireside” at Tribal SelfoverNance Conference, an event on the occasion of a 50-year tribal sovereignty based on the Act on Indian self-determination and educational assistance.

The Act, adopted by the Congress in 1975, meant a departure from the control of the federal government so that native communities could conduct their own programs based on their unique cultural needs.

Mr. Kennedy has long expressed special zeal for improving tribal health, citing a long history of his family, his childhood trips to booking American Indians and part of his own environmental career.

But the meeting took place at an awkward moment. Mr. Kennedy’s agency dismissed older advisers in tribal issues in the federal administration of children and families, ended employees in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Initiative Tribit initiative and closed five regional offices that served gigantic swaths of the indigenous population.

Mr. Kennedy’s last decision to re -supplement the high officials with distant Indian locations of the healthcare seemed to be many more like something like a political exile than a solemn attempt to support native groups.

When Mr. Kennedy was welcomed on the chat stage – pink and yellow lights spinning through the auditorium – he tried to embrace his hand with each tribal leader at the table. He opened the discussion, announcing that some of the Indian health care will be released from the last few executive orders.

The tone was college because officials discussed strategies for improving the health of tribal communities, often with consensus. Mr. Kennedy described his worries for high obesity indicators among native groups. “If we really intend to change public health in terms of reservations and end this crisis, we must deal with what causes the crisis, i.e. food systems,” he told tribal officials. His words met with applause.

Still, there were moments of disconnection. Mr. Kennedy turned into the stories of his childhood, citing the references of Marta’s vineyard, where his father took him to taste “one of the best oysters”.

And then there was an announcement that Mr. Kennedy planned to conduct native groups tested “robotic nurses” – AI voices that could serve as substitutes for human healthcare providers, calling patients as a way to circumvent health care challenges.

“We will try to introduce such systems in the Indian country – we would like to create pilot programs of the Indian country for this type of systems,” he said, causing shoes from the crowd.

“Well,” he added, “There are some places that do not have access to doctors. These are distant places, for example in Alaska.”

Kennedy’s work on behalf of the indigenous communities dates back to the 90s, when he represented various groups in negotiations to stop construction projects, the development of oil and obtaining login in several countries. He was also one of the first editors of the largest Indian newspaper in North America, Indian Country.

During the interrogation in confirmation, Mr. Kennedy pointed to multi -generational frustration related to healthcare for tribal groups. He testified that his father, Robert F. Kennedy and Wujek, President John F. Kennedy, were “deep, deeply critical of the function of Indian health care in 1968–1980 and nothing changed. Nothing happened. Nothing happened better,” he said.

During the exchange with Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican in Alaska, at the hearing, Mr. Kennedy promised to install a native leader at the level of the secretary of the department and to solve unique cultural and logistics challenges involving high quality health care with tools such as Telemmedicin.

But Mrs. Murkowski marked loudly through a number of health problems, on which native Americans fell far behind other ethnic groups, including depression, the exploit of substances, hypertension and stroke. She also creased with infectious diseases that groups proved to fertile – hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningitis, pertussis and measles – and asked Mr. Kennedy to exploit his influence to build trust in vaccines.

He did not directly deal with this request.

On Tuesday, Kennedy also visited Native Health, a federally qualified Health Center, which serves native Americans in the Phoenix region through four primary care clinics and food pantry to facilitate patients with diabetes prepare indigenous regulations.

The secretary staff said that his trip would bring more range of tribal groups, including Wednesday’s visit to the charter school in Nowy Mexico, which mainly serves natives, and a journey with Navajo Nation leaders.

Mr. Kennedy ended the day with a press conference at Arizona State Capitol, where he defended his agency’s response to the ongoing Odra epidemic in West Texas, calling him “a model for the rest of the world.”

When the reporter approached the microphone and began to ask about his views on the MMR vaccine, the reporter was booed by parents and other participants, of whom he calls to remove the journalist from the room.