For nearly a year, mothers delivered their babies in tents set up on the parking lot of Santa Tecla Hospital in El Salvador. Similar makeshift wards also housed the hospital's neo-natal and pediatric units. A mammoth earthquake had severely damaged much of Santa Tecla Hospital, the most important healthcare facility for the poor in the city of San Rafael.

LCIF and Pfizer Inc. each contributed US$25,000 to rebuild the maternity and neo-natal wards. Pfizer, Ronald McDonald House Charities and the Meza Ayau Foundation donated US$30,000 for equipment for the pediatric ward. Ronald McDonald House Charities contributed another US$30,000 to rebuild the hospital.

Thanks to LCIF's designated grants, the healthcare crisis in San Rafael for expectant mothers, sick babies and ill children has ended. New wards at Santa Tecla were dedicated in 2002. More patients than ever are being treated and healed, owing to the larger-sized wards and new equipment.