Desert Senita Community Health Center is the sole provider of primary health and dental services in the entire rural, frontier Ajo Primary Care Area, a geographically-isolated area roughly 2/3 the size of the state of Connecticut and surrounded on all sides by federal lands, with a population of approximately 4,000 residents. Desert Senita currently provides services to about 75% of local residents, and typically records over 15,000 patient visits a year. The Desert Senita organization has evolved from a hospital and outpatient facility which was run by a large mining company until it ceased local operations in 1986. Following the mine closure, the hospital closed and the outpatient treatment facility relocated to the mine’s former single men’s dormitory, in a more central area of the Ajo community. The health center was then run by hospital management organizations hired by the mining company for a few years, prior to becoming an independently run facility in the late 1990s. Desert Senita has been an independent, outpatient treatment facility since 1997 and became a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in 2001. The health center provides health care for the entire family, including preventative and primary health care services, dental services, behavioral health services, outreach and education programs, and eligibility assistance for AHCCCS and other sliding fee scale and discounted services programs. In January 2010, Desert Senita also added in an in-house pharmacy for our patients’ convenience. In 2017, Desert Senita expanded its services to Arizona City, Arizona. In 2019, Desert Senita completed a multi-phase construction project in Ajo and moved into a brand-new facility in Arizona City in January 2022.
