Navajo Nation Approves Gamerco Site for New Gallup Indian Medical Center

The Naabik'íyáti' Committee voted 17 to 2 to place a new Gallup Indian Medical Center in Gamerco, overriding a years-old site selection that had pointed the replacement project toward Rehoboth and marking a decisive turn in an effort to retire one of the Indian Health Service's most overburdened facilities.

The vote, taken by the committee that serves as the final legislative authority on the matter, passed Legislation No. 0129-24 and formally rescinded Resolution NABIJY-30-20, which had previously designated a Rehoboth site east of Gallup as the preferred location. The central reason for the switch: the Rehoboth property is not owned by the Navajo Nation, while the Gamerco site is. Additional factors included the Rehoboth site's limited acreage and restricted transportation access.

The decision did not come without friction with federal evaluators. Phase I of the replacement project, completed in November 2019, had assessed 12 candidate sites and rated the Rehoboth property as the top-ranked location under criteria drawn from the Indian Health Service Technical Handbook for Healthcare Facilities Planning. The Navajo Nation acknowledged that finding but determined that tribal land ownership and site logistics outweighed the IHS scoring.

Delegate George Tolth, who sponsored Legislation 0129-24, framed the urgency plainly. "The Gallup Indian Medical Center critically provides health care services not only to our Navajo people but to all Native Americans in the region," he said. "We can't continue to have GIMC shut down because the facility is old and needs major renovations."

His reference to shutdowns was not rhetorical. GIMC, a 99-bed hospital that handles 250,000 outpatient encounters and 5,800 inpatient admissions each year, was closed on May 3 to address plumbing repairs, then shut down again on June 8 after major and persistent plumbing failures compromised its ability to deliver care. The facility, which holds the largest staff of any Navajo Area IHS hospital and functions as a referral center for hospitals across the Navajo Nation, serves an estimated 200,000 people across northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico.

Senior federal and Navajo Nation officials had visited the Gamerco site on March 12, including senior advisors from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as the replacement process moved forward. The Navajo Nation and IHS have committed to coordinating on the remaining construction work and to keeping the current GIMC operational until a new facility is complete.

No construction timeline or funding details have been publicly announced. The Naabik'íyáti' Committee's approval of the Gamerco site clears a significant procedural hurdle, but the path from resolution to ribbon-cutting will depend on the intergovernmental coordination between Window Rock and the Indian Health Service that both parties say is already underway.