Contemporary practices in Lakota healthcare

This article provides strategies for health care delivery for the Oglala Lakota on the Pine Ridge reservation of South Dakota.

Both authors relied on their field experience as well as health care literature for constructing this article. Stella Iron Cloud is a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

It is important to attend to the internal heterogeneity of Oglala culture, differences across Native American groups, as well as changes over time. There is a consistent importance in acknowledging the importance of family, creating good relationships built on reciprocity in effective healthcare delivery, and respecting the close interrelationship between spirituality and healing and individual self-determination. One must also address with sensitivity many factors which cause poor health on the reservation.