Alamo Navajo Chapter breaks ground on new health center
Congress chipped in $96 million for construction costs
Crews will break ground on a new health care facility in the Alamo Navajo Chapter, a remote community in the Eastern Agency of the Navajo Nation, according to the Alamo Navajo School Board Inc.
The Alamo Navajo Health Center will primarily serve more than 2,600 Alamo Navajo chapter residents who live in rural New Mexico, 200 miles away from their tribal capital in Window Rock, Arizona.
That distance was part of the reason Alamo Navajo leaders lobbied Congress to help with construction costs. In October Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) said more than $96 million was appropriated from the Interior Department for the new hospital.
“Tribal communities have been denied access to reliable healthcare, being forced to drive incredibly long distances and go to great lengths just to see a doctor,” Vasquez said in a statement on Oct. 2. “This project will bring care closer to home.”
Development plans say the 70,000-square-foot health center will also serve rural non-Native people that live in the nearby towns of Socorro and Magdalena.
The groundbreaking ceremony takes place Friday at 10 a.m.
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