Cherokee Nation Reveals $104.3 Million Health Facility Plan
CATOOSA, Okla. — The Cherokee Nation and its business arm, Cherokee Nation Business (CNB), announced on March 28 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa in Catoosa that they would invest $104.3 million into the tribe’s new and existing health facilities.
Cherokee Nation operates the largest tribal health system in the U.S., with 1.2 million patient visits in 2012. CNB’s construction division will manage the construction projects and hire dozens of Tribal Employee Rights Office-certified Cherokee subcontractors to help boost the local economy. Apart from annual dividends, this is the first major investment that the tribe’s businesses have put back into the tribal infrastructure. CNB will pay for the construction and then lease the facilities back to the tribe for operation.
“This is exactly what our businesses were designed to do. Our financial success belongs to the Cherokee people,” said Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker in a statement. “For the first time ever, we are taking a substantial amount of money directly from our businesses and putting it where it counts the most — health care for our citizens. Using our businesses to invest in and improve our health care system is the right thing to do, and it will literally save Cherokee lives.”
According to the plan, $81.1 million would be used for new construction projects. More than half ($53.1 million) of the overall funding will go towards building a new 150,000-square-foot W.W. Hastings Hospital in Tahlequah, Okla., which will replace the current one with a 100-bed facility. The hospital currently serves more than 400,000 patients each year — about six times the amount it saw when it originally opened as an Indian Health Services facility in 1984.
About $13.5 million is set aside for the new 42,000-square-foot Sam Hider Health Center in Jay, Okla., with construction scheduled to start in the fall. Another $9 million will fund the new 28,000-square-foot Ochelata Health Center in Washington County, Okla., also estimated for construction to start in the fall. And in Tahlequah, Okla., the Jack Brown Center will get a new $5.5 million drug and alcohol dependency treatment center.
Facility renovations and expansions will receive $23.2 million in funding. In Stilwell, Okla., $9 million will go to the Wilma P. Mankiller Health Center for a 28,000-square-foot expansion. Another $11 million will go towards the Redbird Smith Health Center, located in Sallisaw, Okla., which will receive a 30,000-square-foot expansion and an 11,000-square-foot renovation. The Three Rivers Health Center in Muskogee, Okla., would get the last $3.2 million for renovations. The Mankiller project should start this fall and take about a year, while the Smith project is scheduled to start this summer and also take about a year.