Santa Ana Pueblo announces new health care facility

SANTA ANA PUEBLO — The Pueblo of Santa Ana will be the site of a new tribal health center meant to address capacity issues at an existing center in Albuquerque and a decades-old backlog of similar facilities not yet built.

Indian Health Services, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will spend $22 million to design the project, known as Albuquerque Indian Health Center West. The new health center, with a total price tag of $251 million, located just north of the Santa Ana Golf Club, would add to the existing Albuquerque Indian Health Center near the University of New Mexico.

Representatives of the pueblo, the department, IHS and other dignitaries made the announcement Friday at a news conference at the Prairie Star Restaurant at the Santa Ana Golf Club before providing a guided tour of the proposed site.

“It’s very important that we bring this facility to fruition … (and bring) the ability for our people to have health care facilities close by,” said Santa Ana Pueblo Gov. Myron Armijo in his opening remarks. “This will definitely change the game for health care in our area here.”

The 235,000-square-foot health center — which will not be a hospital — will provide a closer option for pueblo residents to receive health care in contrast to Presbyterian Rust Medical Center in Rio Rancho and Albuquerque IHS, Armijo said. The health center is expected to provide diabetic care, tele-behavioral health, and “traditional healing,” according to information provided by project developers.

The health center will also cut pueblo residents’ commutes to health care access by more than half, according to Geoffrey Blackwell, CEO of Tamaya Ventures, an economic development director.

The new facility would alleviate Albuquerque IHS’s responsibility of being a central health care hub for Native American communities. The new facility is expected to house more than 500 health care workers to keep up with population growth.

Mark Cruz, a senior adviser to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, said in remarks that he and his boss agreed, “We need to make Indian Country healthy again.”

What is also troubling to both Kennedy and Cruz, he said, is the backlog of facilities on the IHS priority list.

“It really is unacceptable that we’re still working on the 1993 construction (priority) list,” Cruz said. 

With a backlog that’s lasted almost half of IHS’s life since its founding in 1955, Kennedy committed his agency to spending $1 billion to address the issue. But, Cruz said, HHS would like to ask Congress for billions more to help other IHS facilities. 

“My hope is that we don’t have a 75-year problem,” Cruz said. “My hope and the secretary’s hope is that we get through this — and it’s going to take problem-solving, and that’s why we’re here today.”

U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a Democrat, noted how before she became a congresswoman in 2021, she worked for the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama White House and oversaw the Bureau of Indian Affairs portfolio. She said she loved getting backlogged facilities “off the ground.”

Stansbury applauded Kennedy and the pueblo for their leadership and noted how the new health center would expand from serving Santa Ana Pueblo to a handful of other tribes in the area.

“(Nearby health care facilities) can’t provide … the culturally appropriate practices that are needed,” Stansbury said. “So this will fill a need and help save lives.”

Officials selected the 20-acre site for infrastructure needs and its location — the health center could face the Sandia Mountains, providing a breathtaking view for patients, according to Nathan Garica, chairman of Tamaya Ventures.

Construction on the health center is expected to begin later this year and be complete in 2027.