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Summer 2026 News

Alicia Acker — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 01:10:01 +0000

As construction continues on Hospital Cotopaxi, the question naturally arises — will Andean continue to indefinitely build hospitals throughout Ecuador and beyond in the years ahead? The short answer is no. So how will we leverage the experience we have gained over more than a quarter century?

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Spring 2026 News

Alicia Acker — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 01:34:35 +0000

Over the years, many people have asked what it’s like to manage a hospital in a place like Ecuador, particularly in the countryside. Is hospital administration different here than in the United States? The answer is, as you might expect, complicated.

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Winter 2025 News

Alicia Acker — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 01:29:35 +0000

Pancreatitis really hurts. Based in the organ that produces our digestive chemicals, pancreatitis occurs when the organ becomes inflamed and activates those same chemicals right in the pancreas itself rather than in the intestine.

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Fall 2025 News

Alicia Acker — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 00:20:18 +0000

More than 25 years ago I was standing in our makeshift outpatient room in the small, rural town of Pedro Vicente Maldonado (PVM) staring at Alfredo, a young boy with a snakebite, wondering what exactly could be done for him.

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Summer 2025 News

Alicia Acker — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 00:18:00 +0000

While I only joined the AHD team in the US earlier this year, I am not new to Ecuador or AHD. I was born in Ecuador, where much of my extended family still lives. I have been spending time there during my whole life, and have traveled extensively throughout the country.

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Spring News 2025

Alicia Acker — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 00:11:47 +0000

Ecuador is a tropical country. Much emphasis from the global community on how to diagnose and treat diseases revolves around those conditions that we are not accustomed to seeing in the US, such as malaria, dengue, worms, and other parasitic infections.

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2024 Winter News

laura — Sat, 14 Dec 2024 01:53:49 +0000

As you put together your complex holiday menu on a chilly winter day, I would like to share with you another complexity we face beyond the already challenging landscape of health care delivery: energy shortage.

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2024 Fall News

laura — Sun, 13 Oct 2024 21:05:19 +0000

In 2010, I spent some time at our hospital in Pedro Vicente Maldonado (PVM), the only one we had at the time. The hospital administrator told me she needed to take a trip to the coast for a meeting at a public hospital. Would I like to come along? We arrived at a rundown clinic

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Summer News 2024

laura — Sun, 21 Jul 2024 15:17:51 +0000

Since 2000, we’ve maintained a fully functional hospital in Pedro Vicente Maldonado (PVM), Ecuador. When we began, folks in the community had little access to health care and no access to hospital care. There were no government hospitals or private, for-profit hospitals. Basic equipment like X-rays or nebulizer machines, like many of you have used for

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Spring News 2024

laura — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 20:32:15 +0000

55-year-old Marta has chronic kidney disease related to diabetes and hypertension. She has received hemodialysis a few times a week for the past year but missed a week of dialysis. Short of breath, she went to one of Ecuador’s public health centers outside of the small, coastal town of Quevedo.

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