We drove through quite alot of the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. It has an area of 26,000 square miles, a bit larger than the of the state of West Virginia. The level of poverty we witnessed is very depressing. Many homes are run-down trailers, with lots of rusty cars and other stuff in the yard. Our friend Joe, who is a colonel in the United States Public Health Service, has served as an internist on "the res" for about 25 years. He and his wife, Kate, a family doctor, have raised their 3 college-aged kids in government housing in a town where the only non-native Americans are hospital employees.
The Tuba City Hospital has 65 in-patient beds, but they have 100,000 out-patient visits a year. They have an ICU and some specialists, but fly out people with heart attacks and things like that. Native Americans have all of their health care costs paid for, including medications. They have high incidences of diabetes, alcohol abuse, and meth abuse. Joe and Kate have seen some improvements in the lives of those on the reservation, particularly in education.
We visited a canyon on the res, where we found some Jurassic-era oyster shell fossils. The cows were chilling at the canyon also.
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| sign on the door of the Tuba City Hospital |
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| home on the res |
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| "little" neighborhood canyon about 15 miles from Joe and Kate's house |
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| Joe and Kenny--West Essex Class of 1975 |
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