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<\/p>\nThe Minister of Health of Honduras and the National Health Service of the Dominican Republic verified advances in the reduction of maternal and neonatal deaths in Honduras.<\/p>\n
These advances have been achieved thanks to the collaboration between the Ministry of Health of Honduras (Sesal) and the Mesoamerica Health Initiative, a project coordinated by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and financed by the Carlos Slim Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the governments of Canada and Spain.<\/p>\n
As a clear example of the advances, in the last five years the employees of the San Francisco Hospital of Juticalpa, in Olancho, Honduras, have been able to practically eliminate the cases of maternal death (only two cases since 2013) and they have reduced by more than a half the number of neonatal deaths, from 59 cases in 2013 to 24 in 2018.<\/p>\n
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The improvement in the quality of healthcare has been the key to this success, emphasized Alba Consuelo Flores, health minister of Honduras.<\/p>\n
The minister stated that human resources are the most valuable resource, and that the intention is to strengthen primary care procedures working together with local governments, which are an important driver in the communities and have made great efforts in the hospitals where the Mesoamerica Health Initiative has been developed.<\/p>\n
For his part, Eduardo Marques Almeida, representative of IDB in Honduras, reiterated the commitment to contributing to improvements in and access to healthcare of Hondurans through the initiative in that country.<\/p>\n
The Mesoamerica Health Initiative (MHI) is a public-private partnership established by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carlos Slim Foundation, the Government of Spain, the Government of Canada and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the governments of the seven countries of Central America and of the state of Chiapas in Mexico, which seeks to reduce the morbidity and mortality of women of childbearing age and children under five years of age in areas of extreme poverty in the region.<\/p>\n
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