A typical house is made of cement block. The community has access to a health center within the community, as well as both a primary school and secondary school. The primary school has six teachers and seven classrooms, and goes up to grade 6. The secondary school has eight teachers, and six classrooms. Most people in the community work as agricultural and day laborers or cattle raisers. In their communication with Global Brigades, the top three needs expressed were lack of latrines or properly functioning latrines, limited access to potable water, and improvements needed on home infrastructure.
Healthcare access in Nicaragua is structured by the Ministry of Health, based in the capital, Managua. At a municipality level, there is a health center Centro de Salud for every municipality within the department. While they are not hospitals, health centers in the municipality are typically staffed with one doctor, and two nurses, that can attend patients with chronic, communicable, or noncommunicable diseases, as well as pregnancies.
They however, do not have the ability to perform surgeries. Lastly, most but not all communities have a Puesto de Salud, a smaller health center. These health centers are usually staffed with only one nurse and a rotating physician.
This is an initiative that requires Nicaraguan medical students to do two years of service in rural communities prior to graduating. The physician density in Nicaragua is approximately 1, people for every one doctor. According to the World Health Organization, there should be a maximum of people per physician to qualify a country as having adequate access to medical attention.
This density is significantly lower for the However, access remains limited since these training physicians may be assigned to up to fifteen communities at a time. Even with this access, it is important to note that medications, supplies, and materials are often not available in these health centers and are dependent on government funding.
