The Fourth Maternal House Up and Running in Nicaragua

The fourth Maternal House which has been built with Icelandic funds this year was recently opened in Nicaragua. The Maternal House is in the city of Juigalpa in the middle of Nicaragua. A women’s organisation in the city has volunteered to take over the management of the house.

“The Maternal House in Juigalpa will service a very large area since there is no hospital in the city,” says Gerður Gestsdóttir, ICEIDA’s Project Manager for social projects in Nicaragua.

“This house, like the others, are homes where women from the rural areas can live during the last stages of their pregnancy and receive medical aid which otherwise would not be available to them,” she adds. Close to sixty maternal houses are now run in Nicaragua and they receive women who have risky pregnancies and do not have a safe access to medical aid close to their homes.”

In the maternal houses, the women see a doctor twice a day and they can deliver under the supervision of trained professionals. They can stay in the maternal houses while they are recuperating before they return back to their homes. The purpose of the maternal houses is to decrease the rate of maternal and infant deaths which is high in Nicaragua,” says Gerður.

A women’s organisation in Juigalpa has taken over the management of the house and the work will be carried out as volunteer work. The organisation “Friends of the Maternal House” has also been established and according to Gerður, the members are authoritative people from the city and midwives.

Many people gave speeches at the opening ceremony but only one woman, a representative from ICEIDA. Other speakers came from the health authorities in the district, the health centre, the church and the newly-formed city council in Juigalpa.