AP NewsWatch

I'm Ben Thomas with an AP News Minute.

Federal funding to update Native American health facilities is not catching up to community

needs.

Savannah Peters has our report.

Many Indian health service clinics and hospitals are aging and dilapidated, and the agency

is still working off for a placement priority list from 1993.

In February, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged $1 billion

toward the seven projects remaining, but said it would take 8 billion to complete them.

Meanwhile, the IHS patient population is growing.

Geraldine Church, CEO of the Great Plains Tribal Leaders' Health Board, says the IHS hospital

in Rapid City, South Dakota was on that 1993 list, until it finally got replaced three

years ago.

We are already outgrowing this facility.

Church says that's a sign.

The IHS is lagging far behind Indian country's health care needs.

I'm Savannah Peters and I'm Ben Thomas.