Days Inn joins El Rancho, Motel 6, Howard Johnson’s

Community Outreach & Patient Empowerment has partnered with local hospitals, as well as hotels and motels in the Gallup area, to establish a network of care and emergency housing for quarantine and social distancing, in an effort to slow community spread in McKinley County and on the Navajo Nation.

This network now includes the Ranch House Motel, part of El Rancho Hotel, which was the first to receive COVID-19 testing patients awaiting results. It has since extended to Motel 6, Howard Johnson and on April 17, Days Inn.

The network also includes the Gallup Indian Medical Center and Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services. Together, these 6 locations can now accommodate 175 people.

Shelter and meals are funded by the New Mexico Department of Public Health and the Navajo Nation.  Local donations are providing 24-7 transportation.

The effort began taking shape in March. Hannah Sehn, director of programs at COPE, has been instrumental in putting it all together.

“It’s been a very large and unique collaborative effort,” she said. “We’re really leveraging different resources across health facilities, programs and within the city, whether it’s the ambulance service or other emergency services.”

The initiative has created a safety net and is strengthening local capacity.

“It has catalyzed larger conversations around the long-term systems and supports that need to be in place and ways to build on this. We want to leverage the partnerships that we’ve formed during this time to think about these things in innovative and sustainable ways,” Sehn explained.

Staff Reports