CHAZ Celebrates 50 Years of God’s Faithfulness and Grace in Health Service Delivery

Over 300 delegates drawn from a cross section of society attended the CHAZ Golden Jubilee held on 19^th October 2021. The Jubilee was held concurrently with the 45^th General Council. Prominent among the delegates were Church Leaders from the 17 CHAZ Representative Churches, the 157 CHAZ members, Government officials, cooperating partners and invited local and international guests.

The Golden Jubilee held under the theme “50 Years of God’s Faithfulness and Grace in Health”, was officially opened by Health Minister, Mrs. Sylvia Masebo, on behalf of the President of the Republic of Zambia, His Excellency, Mr. Hakainde Hichilema.  

In a speech read on his behalf by Mrs. Masebo, President Hakainde noted the critical role that the Church had continued to play in providing quality health care services to the people of Zambia from as early as 1890 when the first mission was established at Kayambi in Northern Province.

Mr. Hichilema said the provision of formal health services by the colonial authorities was introduced between 1906 and 1914 when they built the first hospitals and clinics.

The President commended CHAZ for focusing on the remote and hard-to-reach areas where Government health facilities were inadequate or not present, altogether.

He described the relationship between CHAZ and the Ministry of Health as that of Siamese twins where it was almost impossible for one twin to survive without the other. He called for continued collaboration between the two partners for the benefit of all the people especially the poor and vulnerable to which CHAZ had a comparative advantage.

“The Church contributes greatly to the provision health care services in the country, at one-point accounting for over 30 percent of the formal bed count in Zambia. In rural areas, the Church health institutions provide upward of 50 percent of the services there,” the President observed.

“Over the last 50 years, the innovativeness of the Church has helped us to effectively respond to challenges such as leprosy and HIV/AIDS,” President Hichilema said.

Mr. Hichilema said the country would not forget the devastation caused by HIV and AIDS in the 80s and 90s before present day medicines and treatments were available and the Church stood in the gap to tender the sick in an atmosphere of love and compassion. 

“The Churches, with Chikankata Mission Hospital in the lead, innovated and devised the home-based care approach, and later the community-based care initiative. Through these initiatives, people provided care and dignity to the dying in the face of hopelessness due to an untreatable disease.  Indeed, Chikankata put Zambia on the Global Map, with many countries visiting Zambia to learn from us,” he said.

In his keynote address, Archbishop Telesphore Mpundu, Emeritus, described CHAZ as an outstanding example of a Christian organisation that had aligned its vision to the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He explained that the work of alleviating the suffering of people was one of the primary duties of evangelization stating that the mission of the Church to provide services such as healthcare was proclaimed in the Gospel of Mathew 25 v 36. It states that “I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

Archbishop Mpundu commended CHAZ for mobilising resources to support various health programmes implemented by its members. However, he urged the Association to also invest in initiatives that would locally raise funds instead of wholly depending on foreign assistance which was not sustainable.

CHAZ Executive Director, Mrs. Karen Sichinga, thanked Government for recognising the role that CHAZ played in the delivery of quality healthcare services and for the unwavering support that it continually gave CHAZ over the past 50 years.

Mrs. Sichinga said CHAZ was celebrating the unity of purpose between Catholic and Protestant Churches in the delivery of health care services. She explained that it was this unity that committed Zambia’s first government to embrace the Church Health Services and made them an integral component of the country’s public healthcare system while ensuring that the Church remained autonomous in the running of its health institutions.

She said CHAZ was a celebration of diversity and proof that what unites Christians was greater than their differences adding that the testimony of the Association had worked so well that other countries around and beyond had come to learn the miracle of Churches working as one body to deliver quality and holistic health services.

During the Golden Jubilee Celebration, CHAZ recognised and awarded a number of persons that had made exceptional contributions to the success and growth of the Association that started with only 29 hospitals and 44 rural health centres to the current 161 members. One of those awarded was Zambia’s First Republican President Dr. Kenneth David Kaunda. Dr. Kaunda’s son, Tilyenji, received the award on behalf of the late founding father of the nation

Some of the key achievements recorded in the life of CHAZ were the construction of a modern three-storey building to house Secretariat Staff and a PCR Laboratory fitted with state-of-the-art equipment for the diagnosis of different diseases including Covid-19. The two buildings were also officially opened by the Minister of Health on behalf of the President as part of CHAZ’s 50^th anniversary celebrations. This was done after a conducted tour of the CHAZ Pharmaceutical Warehouse, the new CHAZ House and the PCR Laboratory.