It is a one-roomed hut with a tin roof. There are four beds inside the hut. Cooking utensils, gas stove and drinking water are well managed. The outside walls are painted with health education messages.

This hut is a maternity waiting home built on the premises of Bohoragaun Health Post at Jhinwakhola in ward 3 of Nisikhola Rural Municipality, Baglung. Around 160 expecting and postpartum mothers have received free of cost services from the facility over the past 17 months, according to the health post.

Jhinwakhola is around 120 km west from the Baglung district headquarters. Service seekers visit Bohoragaun Health Post from remote villages walking for hours. The maternity waiting home was constructed to help pregnant women who face problems in arriving at the health facility promptly during a health emergency.

“The maternity waiting home has been quite useful especially for those pregnant women who live far from the health post,” said Tara Kumari Chand, an auxiliary nurse midwife at the health post. “It reduces time in seeking health care and protecting the mothers as well as the newborns.”

Chand added that women can stay at the waiting home free of cost and receive health care from health workers ahead of the start of labour and in the postpartum period.

As per the Bohoragaun Health Post’s records, as many as 107 women used the maternity waiting home during pregnancy, before the start of labour and or in the postpartum period used the maternity waiting home in the last fiscal year 2023-24. Similarly, a total of 52 women stayed at the waiting home since the beginning of the current fiscal year on July 16.

Mainly the women who live far from the health post have benefited from the facility. “Health risks can be averted if pregnant women stay at the maternity waiting home two-three days before labour pain begins. We can promptly refer the patients to well-facilitated health institutions in case of complications,” said Top Bahadur Chand, chief of Bohoragaun Health Post. “Even women who go through regular checkups during pregnancy may have some complications during delivery. They receive continuous support from trained health workers at the maternity waiting home.”

Some settlements in ward 3 of Nisikhola Rural Municipality are quite far from the nearest health facilities. People have to walk three to four hours to reach the Bohoragaun Health Post. A woman from the ward who did not visit the health facility for safe delivery died of delivery complications. After the incident, the female health volunteers advised pregnant women to carry out regular tests during pregnancy and stay at the maternity waiting home a few days before the delivery date.

The maternity waiting home was constructed four years ago with Rs300,000 provided by the local unit and Rs250,000 under the rural health reform programme of FAIRMED Foundation. “Local women rarely stayed at the maternity waiting home at the start. But now many women use the facility,” said senior auxiliary nurse midwife Tila Malla. “Health of pregnant women and new mothers is always at risk. So such maternity waiting homes are very useful to avert risk.”

Nisikhola Rural Municipality has been providing clothes and other support to service seekers staying at the maternity waiting home. “When the small hut was first constructed as a maternity home, we were not very hopeful. However, it has proven to be very useful,” said Surya Bahadur Gharti, chairman of Nisikhola Rural Municipality. He assured that the local unit is committed to enhancing health facilities for safe delivery. The rural municipality has been providing ambulance service free of cost to those in need.