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WASHINGTON — An independent report by the Indian Health Service has revealed that federal agency officials silenced and punished whistleblowers in a bid to protect a doctor who had sexually abused boys on several Indian reservations for decades.
At the same time, the report, written earlier last year but kept secret until now, found that members of the IHS management “deliberately ignored or actively suppressed efforts to overcome the dangers”.
The 161-page report by consulting firm Integritas Creative Solutions was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The New York Times against IHS and later joined by The Wall Street Journal. The report concludes that IHS leaders have done their best to ignore the allegations against former doctor Stanley Patrick Weber because addressing them would be “strange, cumbersome, inappropriate, messy and embarrassing”.
The report’s release comes after a federal appeals court ruled last week that the IHS had to publish its independent assessment of how Mr. Weber, who works as a pediatrician for the agency, had been sexually preying on Native American men for decades. The ruling confirmed a lower court ruling in The Times’ case, which requested the report be made public.
Mr. Weber is currently serving multiple life sentences in both South Dakota and Montana following federal investigations. In September 2019, he was found guilty of sexual offenses against 9-year-old boys at his home in Pine Ridge, SD between 1994 and 2011, and in 2018, Mr. Weber was convicted of molesting young men in Montana.
The report recommends that IHS deploy whistleblower protection coordinators in 12 regional regional offices and possibly 170 local administrative offices. It also calls for the agency to expand its abuse policies to appeal to victims of all ages, not just children, and to create an internal system that will track allegations of abuse and all information learned during abuse investigations.
IHS spokeswoman Jennifer Buschick said in a statement that the report shows that decades of past policies and procedures have failed to address allegations of sexual abuse by patients.
“IHS recognizes that the trauma suffered by victims of sexual abuse in our institution is unacceptable,” the statement said. “These actions are reprehensible and we sincerely regret the harm done to those involved. We will do everything we can to foster and maintain a culture of care across IHS. The Agency is committed to working with tribal and urban Indian organizational leaders across the country to ensure we are able to protect the health and well-being of every child.”
Ms. Buschick said the agency is starting to make changes. This includes establishing a 24-hour helpline for reporting child or sexual abuse, training all IHS staff and contractors in handling reports of suspected child or sexual abuse, and enforcing stronger patient safety protocols.
Headquartered in Rockville, Md., the IHS was created to fulfill the government’s treaty obligation to provide health care to eligible American Indians and Alaska Natives. The tribes agreed to barter land and natural resources from the federal government for health and other services. But the agency has long grappling with underfunding and shortages of supplies, lack of doctors and nurses, too few hospital beds, aging facilities and poor management.
The blistering report included criticism that serious allegations were poorly documented and records were poorly maintained by IHS officials. The report also found that IHS administrators never made credible attempts to investigate complaints brought by whistleblowers.
In the report, Browning and Billings, Mont. and at IHS facilities in Pine Ridge and Aberdeen, SD, management reportedly has access to copious amounts of evidence “some of which is available to them and some can only be discovered by the most modest amount of candid investigation”. Justify removing Mr. Weber.
“Truly, every victim of Weber’s abuse at Pine Ridge was also a victim of IHS management failures,” the report says.
Blackfeet Nation in Montana was one of the tribal communities affected by Mr. Weber’s harassment. President Timothy Davis said in light of the report, the community is demanding an apology from the IHS and more responsibility for those who cover up the abuse.
“It is inexcusable and disgusting to let this pediatrician do this to our children all these years,” said Mr Davis. “This man has been allowed to work audaciously against our children all these years and has been covered up by the Indian Health Service administration. They should be held accountable for their serious misconduct.”
Agency Signed a $618,000 contract To Integritas Creative Solutions in May 2019 to investigate how it has handled sexual misconduct allegations against Mr. Weber. He did this after the Wall Street Journal article He detailed Mr. Weber’s crimes and the agency’s failure to stop them.
IHS, which has 15,170 employees, most of whom work in its hospitals and clinics, has lacked consistent leadership since the Obama administration. Rear Admiral Michael D. Weahkee, a member of the Zuni Tribe, served on an interim basis from 2017 until he was confirmed by the Senate in April 2020.
Biden resigned at the beginning of his administration. Elizabeth A. Fowler, a member of the Comanche Nation, a descendant of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, now serves as the agency’s acting director.
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