The Navajo Nation is receiving crucial federal funding for the planning of a major new hospital and the construction of three outpatient facilities.
Some $2 million in funding has been secured for the planning of a new Gallup Indian Medical Center.
The current four-story facility, located at 516 E. Nizhoni Boulevard, was built in the early 1960s and, according to officials, is outdated.
A new hospital is expected to cost $550 million to build, and could go up on land near the city’s Miyamura High School some two miles to the northeast of the current hospital.
The new outpatient facilities will go up inside the Pueblo Pintado in western New Mexico; with a second one planned for northern Arizona’s Bodaway-Gap.
The third outpatient project is also slated for the northern end of the state, in Dilkon.
The money, which will pay for both the design and construction of the facilities, has been included as part of a $218 million Congressional appropriation for fiscal year 2019 designed to foster Native American healthcare initiatives.
The Pueblo Pintado project is getting just over $87 million in funding; while the Bodaway-Gap facility will receive $28 million in support.
The third project, the new Dilkon, Arizona outpatient facility, is slated for around $59 million.
The Navajo Area Indian Health Service provides health care support to more than 244,000 members of the Navajo Nation in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.
Members of Congress, during the current session, have also been pushing efforts that would give to Native American tribes more incentives to contract for their healthcare needs with private institutions.
By Garry Boulard
