As we all are aware, McKinley and San Juan Counties have been severely and disproportionately affected by the Covid crisis. At HCM, we travel to Gallup on almost a weekly basis, where we see patients from Western New Mexico and Eastern Arizona. Needless to say, continued trips to Gallup have been met with some trepidation, especially as President Nez of Navajo Nation has ordered Weekend curfews and Governor Lujan-Grisham more recently ordered a state of emergency and a 72 hour lockdown in Gallup. Yet as a group, ultimately we’ve come to the conclusion that people in Gallup require eye care as much as people in Central and Northern New Mexico, and we have continued to staff our clinic there on a regular basis. After all, Drs. Hudson, Golubev, and I are trained as Medical Doctors, and we have taken an oath to provide care to people as physicians at all times – not only to provide care when conditions are safe and delivery is easy.
