Troubled reservation hospital gets more time to fix problems

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The troubled Indian Health Service hospital on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation has been given another week to improve care conditions or risk losing key federal funding.

The hospital was to learn last week whether the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would pull its ability to bill to the federal health insurance programs. But the Argus Leader reports that the hospital has been given until the end of this week to fix problems uncovered in a July inspection.

Among incidents cited were a drunken 12-year-old girl who tried to hang herself while left alone, and a 35-year-old man who died of a heart attack in the emergency room after being pepper-sprayed and restrained.

Hospital and IHS officials have said they set in place a plan to resolve problems