It's a clear morning in Lovelock, Nevada, a small desert town about 90 miles northeast of Reno. It's also home to the Lovelock Paiute Tribe, which has a 20-acre reservation on the edge of town.
At a tree-shaded park, the tribe is hosting its annual health fair. The air is filled with lively chatter and strums of an acoustic guitar. The sun-streaked space is filled with Indigenous jewelry vendors, information booths promoting health and wellness, and a handful of food trucks, offering everything from tacos to ice cream.
There's also a vehicle that looks like a large blue-and-white motorhome idling on the edge of the park. If you step inside, you'll find two patient rooms with exam tables, a bathroom and a center lab with a blood draw station.
It's a mobile health clinic brought here by the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, located about an hour away.
Gabriel Bourne just stepped out of the vehicle.
"Having access to this, I was able to get some shots I needed – that I should've probably had a long time ago but didn't get," said Bourne, smiling beneath his gray mustache.
Time and travel are the biggest barriers. Bourne's a Fallon Paiute-Shoshone member, but he lives in Lovelock, so seeing a physician in Fallon is a two-hour round trip. So when Bourne, who hadn't been to the doctor in more than a year, realized he was steps away from a mobile clinic, he took full advantage.
"I'm able to get my eye appointment, which I've needed glasses for a while," Bourne said. "Along with some cancer screening setups, and follow up with the doctor to see labs and everything else."
Joy Schultz, a registered nurse with the Fallon Tribal Health Center, which runs the mobile clinic, said Bourne's experience epitomizes the impact they can have by traveling to other communities.
"Just the fact that we were here, we got all of those health issues connected with care," Schultz said.
Accessing quality health care has long been an issue for tribal nations, especially in rural areas. The Indian Health Service, the federal agency responsible for providing health care services to Native Americans, has less than 100 hospitals and medical clinics nationwide – all to serve about 2.8 million American Indians and Alaska Natives.
What's more, most IHS facilities suffer chronic staffing shortages. Some of the highest vacancy rates have been felt by the Navajo Nation, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Phoenix, Arizona, and Billings, Montana, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
The lack of doctors and access to care was amplified five years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Jon Pishion, director of the Fallon Tribal Health Center.
"A lot of health care facilities were being shut down," Pishion said. "And with all the services being closed, we needed something to go out to the communities."
After years of driving their vehicles to neighboring reservations, the tribe bought a mobile clinic last year. It was funded by a $673,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture aimed at expanding rural health care access after the pandemic.
The tribe's mobile clinic serves its members and drives to the Lovelock Paiute and Yomba Shoshone reservations, covering a territory of about 200 miles. It can also treat any member of a tribe in Nevada. They serve about 2,000 patients, averaging about 20 patients each month. Pishion said they try to visit each tribe at least once a month, but that isn't always easy.
"Challenge is weather and distance," Pishion said. "They are far away. And during winter, sometimes these areas get hard to access here."
Other tribal nations in the Mountain West are working to bridge the gap in health care access. Mobile health clinics are also being used by the Navajo Nation, the White Mountain Apache Tribe in Arizona and the Fort Peck Tribes in Montana.
"I think having the providers go into their community opens their eyes to the needs and how to better serve them," Pishion said.
Dr. Christopher Chai, a stethoscope slung around his neck, works at the mobile clinic in Lovelock. He said they can act as an urgent care for injuries and wounds.
"We will get the random rancher come in with a broken finger and say, like, 'What do I do with this? It sliced open,'" Chai said. "And we can put in stitches."
The clinic also helps tribal members be proactive instead of reactive about their health.
"We have some people that maybe only come in when they're sick, but now they're seeing us for their preventative care when we come out," he said.
Like Barbara Bonta, an elder of the Walker River Paiute Tribe who lives in Lovelock.
"I've been seeing them for my feet and other problems that I didn't know I had till they started testing this and testing that," Bonta said.
Bonta was brought to the mobile clinic by her daughter Tia Happy, the vice chair of the Lovelock Paiute Tribe.
"With my mom, she can't sit for a long time in a car to go to Fallon or elsewhere to appointments," Happy said. "So, it makes it super convenient when the mobile comes here."
Happy said her mom's been seeing Dr. Chai for the past two years. That's consistent care made possible by the Fallon Tribal Health Center's mobile clinic, which isn't slowing down. This year, the clinic plans to add dental care to its services.
This story was produced for Our Living Lands, a collaboration of the Mountain West News Bureau, Koahnic Broadcast Corporation, and Native Public Media focusing on the impact of climate change on Indigenous communities across the country. It was also supported by the Indigenous Journalists Association and Solutions Journalism Network's 2024-25 Health Equity Initiative.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
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