Speaker 1: Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 1: Idiot's time now for our community connection right here on
Speaker 1: K one, the one you trust, and on the telephone
Speaker 1: line with it, we have a principal Chief of Cherokee Nation,
Speaker 1: Chief Chuck Hoskin Junior. How are we doing today? Chief?
Speaker 2: And then Tom yourself.
Speaker 1: Oh, well, you know what, every day above ground is
Speaker 1: a good one for me.
Speaker 2: But same here.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot going on in Cherokee Nation. Let's
Speaker 1: first of all talked about some investments in healthcare facilities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this has been a great public interest and that
Speaker 2: is the clam Or Indian Hospital. And it gets complicated,
Speaker 2: but I'll try to break it down to really what
Speaker 2: I think is essential and I think very positive, which
Speaker 2: is the Cherokee Nation is taking over the Clamor Indian
Speaker 2: Hospital October first of Tom. It was a little less
Speaker 2: than a year ago actually on your show that I
Speaker 2: one of the first times I talked about this Indian
Speaker 2: Health Service operates Clamor Indian Hospital has operated it since
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty is actually born and what they call the
Speaker 2: old plan Or Indian Hospital Tom in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: Then they shut the place down and built a new one.
Speaker 2: So I'm in the old one. There's a new one,
Speaker 2: but that new one is now old. That new one's
Speaker 2: about as old, and the old one was when I
Speaker 2: was born. So here we are fifty years later. That
Speaker 2: facility needs to be replaced, as just about any facility
Speaker 2: like that would need to be. Get this, the federal
Speaker 2: government no plans to replace it, and not only that,
Speaker 2: has not taken care of it, and it's really abysmal.
Speaker 2: So here's what we did. Since you and I talked
Speaker 2: about this a little less than a year ago, we
Speaker 2: sent in a team to say, we want to really
Speaker 2: get inside clam or Inning Hospital see what's going on,
Speaker 2: operation wise, physical plant wise, the facilities. And here's what
Speaker 2: we found. Great people working there, compassionate people, mostly Native
Speaker 2: people working there in a system that just is operated
Speaker 2: like the federal government operates a number of things, not
Speaker 2: as well as other institutions, governments, et cetera. Could do it.
Speaker 2: Don't even that, So we knew operationally we can do
Speaker 2: it better. And we also were shocked by the conditions
Speaker 2: of clam Wore. When you sort of get behind the scenes,
Speaker 2: kind of peel back the wallpaper a little bit. Tom
Speaker 2: look behind the paneling, go into the places that the
Speaker 2: public doesn't get to go into, so the boiler room,
Speaker 2: the electrical room where they don't even test the big
Speaker 2: breakers tom because they don't think they'll come back on.
Speaker 2: That's what we're talking about. So here's what we're going
Speaker 2: to do. Not only we're going to take it over,
Speaker 2: we're going to build a new one. So I asked
Speaker 2: the council for two hundred and fifty five million dollars
Speaker 2: to build a new clam More Health facility. It will
Speaker 2: take us two years. In the meantime, we're going to
Speaker 2: have to put about eleven million dollars into the old facility.
Speaker 2: And I know that sounds like a lot of money,
Speaker 2: comp it is a lot of money. But we got
Speaker 2: to do it because when we take the keys October
Speaker 2: the first, we're going to be held to the same
Speaker 2: standard the rest of the country's held to on operating
Speaker 2: a healthcare system, not the sort of shielded way clam
Speaker 2: Moore has operated. I'm just telling the truth here, man.
Speaker 2: It's a difficult situation, but we've got to take it over.
Speaker 2: One really important thing, we're not continuing the hospital. That
Speaker 2: concerns a lot of folks. Until you understand that that
Speaker 2: facility sees less than four patients a day. We can't
Speaker 2: sustainably continue the hospital right now, but we can take
Speaker 2: care of that less than for patient to day patient
Speaker 2: load in our system, So good times ahead. We're unfortunately
Speaker 2: going to lose about ten positions because we're transitioning away
Speaker 2: from inpatient, but three hundred and eighty seven people that
Speaker 2: work there got the exclusive right to apply for all
Speaker 2: of those jobs, So I think it's good time.
Speaker 1: To hit good job way to go there. Now. I
Speaker 1: understand that you're also working with a greater tolls so
Speaker 1: YMCA for something kind of big.
Speaker 2: We are so earlier in the year we announced something
Speaker 2: called the publicalth and Wellness Fitness Partners Grant. Really important
Speaker 2: element of this is number one, there's not a penny
Speaker 2: of federal dollars that goes into this new program of ours.
Speaker 2: We're simply taking a little bit of revenue that our
Speaker 2: health system generates from That means revenue from Medicare and Medicaid,
Speaker 2: Blue Cross Blue Shield that we always put into expanding healthcare.
Speaker 2: And we said, let's think about healthcare in a more
Speaker 2: holistic way. Tom, Let's say do people want an incentive
Speaker 2: to go get it, go to their local nonprofit gym.
Speaker 2: Let's subsidize some memberships in these gyms. Let's give it
Speaker 2: a trial, Let's see if it is impactful. So YMCA
Speaker 2: is one of the nonprofit gyms that have taken advantage
Speaker 2: of this. We've been to Muscovie, We've been to Prior,
Speaker 2: We've been to Grove and Tulsa of course has I
Speaker 2: think seven YMCA sites that are participating. So we're looking
Speaker 2: all over and so people can get in touch with
Speaker 2: or i should say gyms, nonprofit gens, not for profit
Speaker 2: gyms can get in touch with our Public Health Wellness
Speaker 2: team at the Cherokee Nation PHWF dot Cherokee dot org
Speaker 2: is the email address for those nonprofit gyms that want
Speaker 2: to participate in this program. And essentially what it is, Thomas,
Speaker 2: you have a household with a Cherokee in it, the
Speaker 2: whole household gets a half price discount at the local
Speaker 2: nonprofit gym. But YMCA was the biggest of the partner.
Speaker 1: So forth, Wow, that's good news. Last you know, Oklahoma's
Speaker 1: been like the big place where movies are made the
Speaker 1: last three or four years. And Cherokee Nation has not
Speaker 1: been left out by any means, but I understand that
Speaker 1: thanks to all the movies being made and a lot
Speaker 1: of participation at the nation level, you've got a special designation.
Speaker 2: Well, we have designated. We've sort of taken a page
Speaker 2: out of the playbook of a number of states and
Speaker 2: communities who have designated themselves film ready. In other words,
Speaker 2: they're saying, look, we're ready for production companies to come
Speaker 2: to town. We're ready to provide the support, we're thinking
Speaker 2: about workforce infrastructure. We declared that as the first tribe
Speaker 2: in the country to do it. But of course it's
Speaker 2: not just declaring it. People can see the real substance
Speaker 2: behind it. And you're right, Tom, Oklahoma is increasingly a
Speaker 2: place where movies are produced. That's good news for Oklahoma
Speaker 2: because that generates a lot of local economic development and
Speaker 2: our sense and the state sense we work well with
Speaker 2: the states as if we sustain this and it's not
Speaker 2: just a one off shot, and look, Killers of the
Speaker 2: Fireman was huge. What we need, though, is to make
Speaker 2: sure that there are continual productions throughout Oklahoma because that's
Speaker 2: how you build an economy around the film and TV industry.
Speaker 2: So we're doing it I've talked before on the show
Speaker 2: about our state of the yard led Greens Greens studio
Speaker 2: we expanded earlier this year into a massive conventional studio.
Speaker 2: There's two different places for people in the movie biz.
Speaker 2: They know what that means to bring production. And then
Speaker 2: Oklahoma and Northeast Oklahoma, including the Cheroke Nation, has something
Speaker 2: that money can't buy, Tom, and that is the beautiful landscape.
Speaker 2: I mean, the short distance from your studio is just
Speaker 2: beautiful planes, you know, just just grasslands. And then in
Speaker 2: Bartlesville Proper, you know, one of the more beautiful downtowns
Speaker 2: around with some historic buildings. You multiply that times a
Speaker 2: few dozens across Northeast Oklahoma. That means we can do this, Tom,
Speaker 2: but we've got to be prepared to do it. We've
Speaker 2: got to be ready to do it. We've got to
Speaker 2: put dollars on the table. We've done that at the
Speaker 2: Cherokee Nation. We're also doing a lot of job training
Speaker 2: so that people, and this is important to me, Tom,
Speaker 2: young Cherokees can look at a movie production and not
Speaker 2: just dream one day I might go to Hollywood. I
Speaker 2: might leave home go to Hollywood. They can say one
Speaker 2: day I might just go to Owasso, to the studio
Speaker 2: and still live near my people. I bet I can
Speaker 2: be in the movie business. Bad is what tomorrow's about, Tom,
Speaker 2: and we're doing it today.
Speaker 1: One of the many investments with Cherokee Nation. You know
Speaker 1: when it comes to healthcare, well, listen, then a little
Speaker 1: bit of entertainment. Sounds like you got a pretty good
Speaker 1: picture and a darn good story to tell this month. Chief,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: Good times, the best summer ever, Tom.
Speaker 1: Invest Indeed, I want you to take care of yourself,
Speaker 1: and I can't wait till next month. It seems like
Speaker 1: we always get a treasure trove of stories from you here.
Speaker 1: But I'm really looking forward to hearing more about the
Speaker 1: Claremore facility. Once you get the keys and once you
Speaker 1: get things going to break ground on the new one.
Speaker 1: Now that's gonna be big.
Speaker 2: We'll do it, Tom. Thank you sir, all
Speaker 1: Right, Chief Chuck Hoskins, Junior, Cherokee Nation, thank you for
Speaker 1: being with us today on Community Connection