Healthcare for Pregnant Women in Nicaragua

It's now been some 4 months since Clinica Verde was forcibly shut down by the Nicaraguan government, joining a current total of 970 NGO's closed by the Ortega-Murillo regime. I started Clinica Verde 15 years ago with exceptional partners and a commitment to our mission to bring health and hope to families in need. It has been the central work of my life over those amazingly giving years. My sadness for the way that CV ended is settling into thankfulness for the opportunity to do such meaningful work with remarkable humans for so long. I've always been lucky, and the work of Clinica Verde made me so much luckier. Many of our former employees have now been able to secure new work, others have emigrated, and some still reside in that space of hope and uncertainty. We hold each of them close in our hearts and minds.

Our Board of Directors continues to meet as we decide our next steps forward. We will keep you posted.

Many thanks for your support and faith over these fruitful years of service.

Dear Friends and Supporters of Clinica Verde,

It’s with heartbreak and regret that we inform you that the government of Nicaragua has canceled our registration as a nonprofit and shut down Clinica Verde. We are now among some 120 NGO’s operating in Nicaragua in the areas of healthcare, human rights, food security, violence prevention, education and more that have been shuttered or nationalized by the Nicaraguan government.

The government is citing most NGO’s, including Clinica Verde, for violations regarding failure to register as a foreign agent, but I want to assure you that no such violation occurred. Clinica Verde has diligently submitted and filed all required documentation and financials requested by the government of Nicaragua. There is no due process for appealing these unilateral decisions.

Our wonderful staff has been dismissed, our Nicaraguan bank accounts are now closed, power and phone lines turned off, and our beautiful clinic is being watched by our security guard while we wait for authorities to assume control, as they have with other organizations that were canceled by the government. We still await that action.

We are relieved to say that we were able to transfer money down to pay severance to all members of our team and settle any debts in the country before we closed our Nicaraguan accounts.

The rest of our funds remain secure in the United States, as our financial policies and procedures have always maintained that money be held in the U.S. with limited amounts transferred monthly to Nicaragua to cover clinic operating costs.

There are still many questions that remain to be answered as our administrative team in Nicaragua – Rafael Morales, Escarlin Bello and David Narvaez – continue to interact with the Nicaraguan Ministry of Governance in an effort to comply with all of their requests.

Clinica Verde was founded in 2007 by a volunteer Board comprised of experts in the area of healthcare, design, finance, and the law from both the U.S. and Nicaragua. We worked together collaboratively for years, adding volunteers and supporters from Canada, the Netherlands, Australia and around the world. We opened our sustainably designed clinic in January of 2012 and for the past 10 years our Nicaraguan team of professionals has managed and led the work serving families living in poverty with excellence and compassion, becoming a model throughout the country of Nicaragua and beyond.

Over the past 10 years of clinic operations, Clinica Verde was a leader in healthcare, launching a recognized Prenatal Nutrition Program that helped reduce malnutrition and ensured babies were born of a healthy birthweight, integrating a biointensive garden and hands-on teaching in the areas of nutrition and wellbeing, leading a Teen Program in sexual reproductive health that equipped peer leaders in communities and schools, increasing food security through training and providing seeds for rural families to create home gardens, and integrating mental and emotional health services into our healthcare model, offering support for those who face trauma, sexual violence, and the pervasive anxiety that so many living in poverty bravely face each day. Since 2012, we provided nearly 280,000 healthcare services, rural outreach to over 63,000 people, over 42,000 optometry screenings and educational talks to more than 38,000 patients on everything from managing chronic disease to Covid-19 prevention – providing compassionate, high-quality clinical care to the communities we served.

There are too many stories and successes to share here, too many obstacles and challenges met along the way that inspired change and new ways of thinking.

One thing has remained constant: We could not be more proud of the work performed by our extraordinary team in Nicaragua, each of whom we love like family, and each of whom treated Clinica Verde’s patients as if they were family. They are, and will always be, healthcare heroes.

In the coming months we will be deciding what to do with Clinica Verde in the U.S. to honor our mission and your trust in us. We will continue to update you as our Board of Directors decide together the best path forward for our beloved organization.

Our deepest thanks for traveling with us along this infinitely rewarding journey. It has been the honor of a lifetime.

Abrazo fuerte,

Susan Dix Lyons

Founder and Chair

Clinica Verde