Bureau Servicing Indian Health Needs to Get Agency Status
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WASHINGTON — The Indian Health Service is being elevated within the Health and Human Services Department to agency status, officials said Friday.
“Raising the status of the Indian Health Service from a bureau to an agency signals our commitment to improving the health of American Indians and Alaska Natives,” department Secretary Otis R. Bowen said in a statement.
It will become the seventh agency of the Public Health Service, gaining the same formal organizational status as the Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control.
The Indian Health Service provides health care to about 1 million people in 34 states. With more than 11,000 employees, it operates 45 hospitals, 72 health centers and more than 250 smaller stations and satellite clinics.
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