New health dept. will improve services to the people
WINDOW ROCK
The Navajo Division of Health’s transition to the newly created Navajo Department of Health is more than a simple name change.
It means, according to public health officials and Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly, the new office will operate as a state-like health department.
The landmark bill also reinforces sovereignty by allowing the health department to “monitor, evaluate, regulate, enforce and coordinate health care and public health programs, functions, services and activities of the Navajo Nation,” according to language in the bill.
Last Friday, Shelly signed the Department of Health Act of 2014 into law. The new law, which replaces a 20-year-old law, allows the tribe to become the first tribally administered Medicaid agency, establish its own epidemiology center and also create an entity that will work with traditional cultural practitioners.
Highway 264,
I-40, WB @ Winslow