Director skips meeting on health worries in Crownpoint

By Karen Francis
Diné Bureau

CROWNPOINT — Two weeks for the Indian Health Service Crownpoint Health Care Facility to reopen its emergency services 24 hours a day is not soon enough for residents. They say they rely on the health center for emergency medical care and the health care center has been on limited hours since the middle of May.

Alice Benally, the Navajo Nation Council delegate who represents Crownpoint and vice chair of the Health and Social Services Committee, has firsthand experience with the problem community members gathered to discuss at the chapter house Friday.

Benally said that over the weekend, her husband was having medical problems.

“It had me in tears because I’ve never seen him so bad,” she said. “I couldn’t call down here. Nobody answered.”
She desperately called the hospitals in Gallup before she had to rush him out to Rehoboth.

“He could’ve suffered a heart attack if I didn’t take him,” she said. “I just jumped in the truck. We sped and I got him into Gallup.”

She added that the situation is worse for people in the community who do not have access to transportation or money for gas to get to Gallup, which is about 55 miles one way.

“What about our children when they become ill? In a life-or-death matter, should a parent lose a child because the facility was closed?” she said.

The Crownpoint community members wanted to know why their Indian Health Services health care facility’s emergency room is closed in the evenings and on weekends. The Navajo Nation Council’s Health and Social Services Committee held its meeting here Friday at the request of the chapter and invited Navajo Area Indian Health Services Director John Hubbard.

However, Hubbard was not available and sent Douglas Peter in his place, which Council delegate for Torreon, Pueblo Pintado and Whitehorse Lake Leonard Tsosie saw as “disrespectful” to the committee and the community.

“Yes, his workers might be here, Mr. Chairman (Walker),” Tsosie said. “But his workers cannot give us a yes or no answer today.”

Peter did not know when the full services would be open for the community again, but Benally said she was told it may be as soon as two weeks, which she said “I don’t think that’s soon enough.”

The IHS issued a news release last month that the emergency room would temporarily be on limited hours of operation because of “an acute shortage of qualified technical staff.” Emergency services are not available after 7 p.m. and before 8 a.m., Monday through Friday, and all day Saturday and Sunday.

Patients have been told to go directly to nearby facilities such as in Gallup, Fort Defiance or Shiprock.