Gallup Indian Medical Center in line for $1.2 billion replacement

By Donovan Quintero
Special to the Times

WINDOW ROCK – Outdated, the country’s largest Indian Health Service, faces a plethora of problems that could potentially cause it to severely create greater unsafe conditions for Navajo patients.

Even as a need for a new facility has been in the works since 1993, Gallup Indian Medical Center has fallen through the cracks. For 31 years, GIMC was placed on a priority list, but with no official site yet chosen — until over two weeks ago — plans to replace the old hospital never began.

Doctors like retired physician Fredrick W. Held, who worked at GIMC from 1979 until his retirement in 2019, joked if they’d ever see a new hospital in their lifetime.

“While I was there, there was continual talk about a new facility and then almost got to be a bit of a joke that we were wondering whether we’d see a new facility within our lifetime, not our career but our lifetime,” said Held. “That’s been a constant topic for the last couple of decades in my career, at least.”

Held said he was an internal medicine physician and provided services to his patients at GIMC and Tohatchi Health Care Center, which opened in 1994.

He said he remembered in 1979, the hospital did not have air conditioning, which he said was common back then.

“So, it probably wasn’t too unusual that AC wasn’t available at that time. It’s unusual now,” said Held.

Held said he’s heard of money being appropriated for studying the concept of building a new facility but didn’t go further than that.

“As far as l know, there has been no appropriations for a building itself,” he said.

‘It will become unsafe,’ new hospital

Delegate Vince James, the Health, Education, and Human Services Committee chair, who represents Jeddito, Cornfields, Ganado, Kinlichee, and Steamboat, said the Gallup Indian Medical Center will eventually become too unsafe to use.

“It will become unsafe. And of course, the physicians eventually are not going to apply because the facility is in bad and poor condition,” he said Tuesday night at the Council Chamber.

James heard from IHS Navajo Area Director DuWayne Begay during his report to the Council on Tuesday. After Begay’s report, James was dissatisfied with his responses to his questions.

“No, he didn’t, he didn’t it. And I don’t think we’ll ever get the actual explanation, the actual facts regarding GIMC. It’s going to be hard, trying to get it out of them,” said James.

James mentioned that the IHS earmarked $1.2 billion for the construction of a new GIMC.

He said that the proposed site for the new medical center will be Gamerco, New Mexico, just north of the Gallup city limits. Council delegates Danny Simpson and George Tolth spearheaded a legislation to secure the land for this crucial project which passed on June 27.

James emphasized the urgency of finalizing the land acquisition, citing the availability of funding for the construction of the new hospital.

The forthcoming GIMC in Gamerco joins a series of recent developments within the IHS network, including the construction of health care centers in Kayenta, Dilkon, Bodaway-Gap, and Torreon. Additionally, Ganado is set to inaugurate its new two-story, 120,000-square-foot hospital under Public Law 93-638 this fall, featuring on-site staff housing and expanded parking facilities.

Read the full story in the July 18, edition of the Navajo Times.

---