Loan seeks to benefit more than 3.7 million people

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved a $150 million loan to strengthen and expand the Hospital Network in Honduras. The program seeks to improve the effectiveness and access to specialized maternal and child hospital services, care for externally caused injuries and non-communicable diseases.

The health system in Honduras faces important challenges in access to health services, which especially affect the most vulnerable people. The lack of quality hospital infrastructure is one of the main determinants that limit this access. On the other hand, injuries from external causes are the first cause of emergency care in hospitals, causing oversaturation. This loan, approved by the IDB Board of Executive Directors, will finance the construction and equipment of a general hospital in the municipality of Roatán and two trauma hospitals, one in Tegucigalpa and the other in San Pedro Sula. These last two will have cofinancing from the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The operation includes training clinical skills and competencies of hospital staff for the start-up of these hospitals, including nursing staff, general practitioners, and specialists. Likewise, the initiative will finance information systems development to strengthen hospital management and staff training in clinical and management topics, necessary to guarantee personnel coverage, quality of care, and the operation of the beneficiary hospitals.

Evidence shows that integrated health service delivery networks (IHRS) are an effective solution to meet the population's needs and address the access, efficiency, quality, and equity challenges that health systems face. This operation will strengthen the first level of care and the management of the networks to which the hospitals belong, as well as pre-hospital emergency care.

The initiative will also finance equipment for the patient transfer system (including ambulances) and pre-hospital communication and telemedicine services between the intervened hospitals and their primary network, among others.

The IDB loan of $150 million has a disbursement period of 6 years and an interest rate of 0.25%.