Hospital Infantil Manuel de Jesus Rivera (La Mascota), located in Managua, was opened in July 1982, the only children's hospital in Nicaragua which has all the necessary support serives to provide pediatric cardiac surgery. It is a public hospital equiped with 257 beds and is specialized in pediatric care with 23 pediatric sub-specialties.
The hospital has a genral pediatric ICU which is satisfactory for the care of children following cardiac surgery. Its operating room for cardiac surgery has been used by the ICHF medical teams since 1996 along with its routine ward beds for cardiology and cardiac surgery and the hospital laboratory for routine blood analysis. Caridac diagnostic services are provided in the hospital solely as echocardiograms. The echo laboratory is satisfactory, but it needs a more modern echocardiogram machine. All cardiac cathereterizations are performed off-site as there is no catheterization laboratory at La Mascota.