Mary Jo Green Chickasaw Tribal Legislature

Hello and greetings from Legislator Mary Jo Green, Seat 5, Pontotoc District and Committee Chair of the Health Care Committee! This Spring is beautiful in the Chickasaw Nation and the trees and flowers are changing every day. It seems that Spring and Fall have a special beauty here.

Congratulations to all of our graduating students, whether junior high school, high school, college, vocational or technical. We are proud of you and wish you the best in your life choices.

More piers are being built for the new hospital and progress is being made! The Health System is currently advertising for an Eldercare Manager and we hope to fill the position soon. The position will facilitate and enhance health care for our senior citizens. Unfortunately, we have just lost part of our dental staff at Carl Albert and will need to find replacements as soon as possible.

The Legislature is preparing to receive the Fiscal Year 2009 budget. We anticipate presenting it to the citizens as we did last year with a public hearing and a power point presentation. The public hearing is very informative and we hope that more citizens attend this year. We hold the public hearing in our beautiful new Community Center in Ada.

Administrator Bill Lance has submitted the following statistics: for the month of March, 2008, there were 205 hospitalizations at Carl Albert Indian Health Facility. The number of outpatient visits at Carl Albert was 18,942. March Emergency Room visits were 1,040. March saw 245 surgeries and the Same-day Clinic saw 3,512 patients.

The Family Practice Clinic in Ada saw 2,700 patients in March. The Ardmore Clinic saw 3,371 patients and the Tishomingo Clinic saw 2,875. The Durant Clinic saw 2,967 patients and the Purcell Clinic saw 2,439 in March. Generally speaking, the Health System was much busier in March than February.

I would love to hear from you! Please contact me through my email address mary.green@chickasaw.net or through the address and telephone number listed elsewhere in this and every issue of the Chickasaw Times and on the Chickasaw Nation web site.

My articles are also located on the web site. Until next month, thank you.