The Christian Health Association of Nigeria (CHAN) is a not-for-profit umbrella faith-based non-governmental organization founded in 1973 by the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), the Christian Council of Nigeria (CCN), and the Northern Christian Medical Advisory Council of Nigeria (NCMAC). CHAN is the oldest health faith-based organization (FBO) in Nigeria. The organization serves its members through the provision of various kinds of services.
CHAN has a drug supply and logistics arm called CHAN Medi-pharm, which is responsible for procurement, manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution of drugs and other health supplies across the country. CHAN and her subsidiary have been members and partners of EPN and the relationship have been mutually beneficial over the years.
One of the key focus of CHAN is the provision of quality healthcare services in their member facilities. Recently, CHAN participated in an online learning initiative on strengthening the capacity of 25 health workers and health managers to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 among member health facilities. The exercise is focused on addressing the numerous challenges that have been brought about by the pandemic. Different cadres and facilities took part in the online exercises. After training, the participants were tasked to develop action plans to improve their hospital operations holistically and to transform their various facilities. Furthermore, they were also responsible for the implementation of the plan. The exercise is still ongoing.
One of the latest exercises with EPN is building the capacity of supply chain of frontline health workers in primary health care centers. This is intended to be accomplished through EPN needs assessment. Through this exercise, EPN seeks to identify the needs of its members in order to identify ways and interventions to address them. It is one of the key areas outlined in the new strategic plan 2021-2025. Among other EPN members, CHAN was charged with the task of collecting data from at least 50 health care workers and 8 National stakeholder Institutions. This exercise was carried out using online questionnaires.