This Monday, May 19, more than 20 thousand comadrone grandmothers will begin to receive the first payment of Q2 thousand, as part of the annual stipend of Q4 thousand that the Congress of the Republic approved on February 25 to dignify them.
According to the Ministry of Health, This disbursement amounts to Q40 million and comes from a reorganization that the executing units carried out in the budget assigned for this year. A similar amount must be delivered in November, and the request for a budget extension to the Ministry of Finance to fulfill this commitment is not ruled out.
It was reported that each Departmental Directorate of Integrated Health Services (DDRISS) will make payment through its municipal health districts (DMS).
Until April 2025 it was registered A total of 20 thousand 32 Comadrones grandmothers who will receive the benefit. The departments with the greatest presence are: Huehuetenango, with three thousand 532; Alta Verapaz, with two thousand 649; Quiché, with two thousand 333, and San Marcos, with 1,935.
Last week, through Ministerial Agreement 131-2025, the technical and operational guidelines for the delivery of the economic stipend were established. However, Angelina Sacbajá, vice president of the National Movement of Comadrones Nim Alaxik, points out that the opinion of the midwives to elaborate them was not taken into account.
This first payment will be through a checkwhich, for Sacbajá, is easier for the midwives, considering that many are illiterate, speak a Mayan language and do not have a bank account to receive a deposit, although this second is the other option that the guidelines propose to collect the stipend.
He adds that, as a group, they will make a monitoring to ensure that those who receive the benefit are really comadrone grandmothers, and that it reaches all those registered in the health centers of each community.
“We will do an analysis of the guidelines, to establish how far everything they (the Ministry of Health) ask for; a point that we do request is that there is recognition by the authorities (local) to prevent them from putting people who are not midwife in the listings,” says Sacbajá.
He adds that the stipend they will receive is a positive act that supports the work they do; However, the important thing is the dignification of the group, that the state of Guatemala and the Ministry of Health recognize the importance of the work they perform In communities, because they not only follow the pregnancy and childbirth process, they also accompany the different stages of the human being to close the cycle of life.
Sonia Gutiérrez, deputy of the Winaq party, points out: “This is a mechanism to dignify the noble and fundamental work that the midwives make, because they are the ones that attend the health and life of people in the communities, and they do not receive any remuneration from the State for that historical and ancestral work they carry out.”