Indian agency to quit taking drugs to Billings

[Waya]

Ten months after announcing a policy that would force American Indians in Billings to fill prescriptions in Crow Agency, Indian Health Service officials have vowed to finally enforce it.

Set to go into effect March 1, the change would prohibit a decadeslong practice of ferrying prescription drugs between the Crow-Northern Cheyenne Hospital on the Crow Indian Reservation and the Indian Health Board of Billings clinic.

It would also prohibit the hospital pharmacy from filling prescriptions ordered by providers who do not work at the medical center.

"There is no logic to any of it," said Marjorie Bear Don't Walk, executive director of the Indian Health Board of Billings. "It is pure and simple discrimination."


http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/02/16/news/local/25-ihs_x.txt