Native veterans can now access face-to-face primary care at the Kayenta Health Center
KAYENTA — Growing up, Bobbie Baldwin remembers listening to both her grandfather and her father lament the long drives from the Navajo Nation to Phoenix or New Mexico in order to access veterans health care services.
Years later, Baldwin helped celebrate the expansion of in-person veterans services at the Kayenta Health Center, bringing these services within reach for local veterans for the first time.
"It's a blessing," Baldwin, now the executive director of the Navajo Nation Veterans Administration, said at the ribbon cutting on March 20. "Knowing it's at our backdoor — its nothing less than a blessing."
For the first time, the health center will provide veterans with face-to-face primary care, expanding on existing telehealth services. The center will also be able to take resources out into the community with a new mobile clinic.
"It is our job, our responsibility to serve veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors as well as they have served us, as well as they have served our country," said Steve Sample, medical center director for the northern Arizona VA health care system.
"Their health and wellbeing is a fundamental pillar of this obligation and one that we constantly strive to improve," he said. "This new expansion of services is a huge step in making good on that obligation for our Native veterans living in Kayenta and surrounding areas."
There are a little over 10,000 registered Navajo veterans, but Baldwin said they estimate the real number to be about twice that.
While veterans around Kayenta could access some help through existing telemedicine resources in the past, Baldwin said many Navajo prefer to interact in-person. Having new providers available is critical in getting more people connected with available resources, including both health care and VA benefits.
Before now, many Navajo veterans would have to make a choice between living in more populated areas with nearby services or returning to their ancestral homelands, where they might be most comfortable but where services are difficult to access, Baldwin said.
With the new offerings in Kayenta, she hopes that Navajo veterans can now have the best of both worlds.
Now that these services are available, leaders at the ribbon cutting implored the younger generations to encourage their veterans to utilize the resources that they have rightfully earned through their service.
There still exists a culture of resistance to accessing VA services, stemming largely from generational trauma, Baldwin said, including the long history of mistreatment by the government. Additionally, many Native veterans have the misconception that they would be taking away opportunities for other veterans that deserve it more, she said.
"That's where a lot of our women who are spouses, daughters, granddaughters, we have to be there to encourage the majority male veterans to go to the clinic, go get help, go apply and find out what you qualify for," Baldwin said.
The expansion at the Kayenta clinic follows a similar development in Chinle in January with future expansions planned for later this year in Polacca and Tuba City to serve even more Native veterans across northern Arizona.
Reach the reporter at LLatch@gannett.com.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: VA expands in-person health care for Native veterans in Kayenta
