Last Friday, almost 1,000 Indian Health Service (IHS) employees were laid off as part of President Trump's executive order, "Implementing the President's 'Department of Government Efficiency' Workforce Optimization Initiative," Levi Rickert reported for Native News Online over the weekend.
However, shortly after, the layoffs affecting IHS workers were rescinded, Levi Rickert wrote. Hours after employees had been informed of the layoffs, supervisors began notifying the targeted workers that they had been given a reprieve, ICT's Jourdan Bennett-Begaye informed.
"The Indian Health Service has always been treated as the redheaded stepchild at HHS," said the recently elected Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in a statement emailed to Native News Online. "My father often complained that IHS was chronically understaffed and underfunded. President Trump wants me to rectify this sad history. Indians suffer the highest level of chronic disease of any demographic. IHS will be a priority over the next four years. President Trump wants me to end the chronic disease epidemic beginning in Indian country."
"[T]he National Indian Health Board, the National Council of Urban Indian Health, and the National Indian Child Welfare Association sent a letter to the administration urging them to exempt employees essential to fulfilling the United States' trust and treaty obligations to tribal nations," Rickert reported.
"We can confirm the layoffs were rescinded thanks at least in part to advocacy by the many Tribal organizations." a spokesperson for the National Indian Health Board said in an email to Native News Online.
The mass layoffs affected the CDC, FDA, and NIH, as our editor-in-chief reported on February 18.
