Two New Mexico lawmakers have invited a senior Health and Human Services official to visit Gallup Indian Medical Center to observe what they say are dangerous delays in patient care caused by new Trump administration policies.
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, D-N.M., and Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., sent a letter Tuesday to Mark Cruz, a senior advisor to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., requesting he witness “firsthand how the Administration’s bureaucratic red tape is limiting access to basic and essential health care services,” according to a news release from Leger Fernández’s office.
The lawmakers cited a new “Presidential Appointee Approver and Departmental Efficiency Review” policy that they say is causing delays in contract renewals for essential personnel, equipment and services at the medical center.
The policy stems from President Donald Trump’s Feb. 26 executive order implementing the Department of Government Efficiency’s cost reduction initiative. Under the new rules, all Indian Health Service facilities must have contracts and related expenses approved by the acting IHS director, rather than locally at individual hospitals.
“The new policy has dramatically and dangerously slowed down care at GIMC and brought some essential services to a halt entirely,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter to Cruz.
According to the lawmakers, the medical center has reduced available beds and scaled back maternal and emergency care services. They said the changes restrict healthcare workers’ ability to immediately diagnose and treat urgent conditions.
The Indian Health Service relies heavily on contracts for services ranging from laboratory work to paying traveling doctors and nurses, the lawmakers noted.
Cruz, a member of the Klamath Tribes, has previously stated publicly that the new policy “has not interrupted the IHS’s ability to fulfill any responsibilities,” according to the letter.
The lawmakers argued the policy violates federal trust and treaty obligations, writing that these agreements “require the federal government to adequately fund and staff IHS hospitals, including GIMC.”
I had a 41 year career as a physician with IHS and over 30 of those years at the Gallup Indian Medical Center. This conceived log jam is dangerous and defies good effective management strategy. I am also Native American and not surprised by this conceived log jam that affects an invisible population. There has been so much progress made since 1970 (high incidence of tuberculosis, trachoma, diphtheria and dysentery) and many damaging health conditions controlled. Still there are many disparities and the rural and isolated nature of this system needs local decision making authority. So sad!!!!!