Ensuring quality pediatric healthcare: CBC, ACHF lay foundation stone of state-of-the-art Cameroon Children’s Hospital.

The foundation stone was laid in Mutengene, Fako Division, in the South West Region, on Saturday January 17, 2026. The structure, estimated at over 11 billion FCFA, will be constructed by the African Children’s Healthcare Fund, in partnership with the CBC and other local and international supporters of the initiative.

The state-of-the-art hospital will be built on about 125 square feet of land, (which is about ten thousand square metres), with 65 beds and 12 to 17 neonatal intensive care unit beds and about 12 pediatric Intensive Care Unit beds. 

The pediatric intensive care units will carter for the needs of neonates and newborns with all kinds of health challenges. It will be filled with the latest technology, including four operating rooms to carry out open-heart surgery, brain tumors removal and other specialised services for children.

The hospital, with official name Alexander B. Gwan-Nulla Baptist Children’s Hospital of Cameroon, is a testimony to the sacrifices of Dr Daniel Gwan-Nulla and his wife, Dr Meesha Gwan-Nulla, the Founder and Co-founder of the African Children’s Healthcare Fund. Dr Daniel Gwan-Nulla explained that it was named after his father, a medical doctor who also served humanity with dedication.

He explained that the motivation behind such a facility is his desire to ensure children in Cameroon and the entire Sub-Saharan Africa Region have a specialised health facility that can carter for all of their needs. He expressed dismay that the entire Region has just about four specialised children health facilities. 

Dr Daniel Gwan-Nulla said his father, who served as Chief Medical Officer of the Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC, for a long time, imbued in him values of discipline, excellence and selflessness. 

Working in the United States, he has dedicated his medical career to serving those in need around the world, by donating much his income in memory of his father.

He said the new facility would help address congenital anomalies, where kids are born with congenital defects in their hearts or other parts of their bodies, but the country lacks not just the expertise, but also the facilities to take care of them. 

“…most often, they require high-tech intensive care units for the newborns who are born with those anomalies, which require high-tech neonatal intensive care units, which we just do not have,” Dr Daniel Gwan-Nulla explained. 

The construction of the health facility, it was announced, will run for three to five years, depending on available funding. 

“…we are hoping in three years, depending on funding. If we get a good response from the Cameroonian community and others, helping us with funding, the project can materialise in three years. If the funding is slow, it may take longer,” Dr Daniel Gwan-Nulla disclosed.

He promised that the health facility would take care of children from all socioeconomic backgrounds, highlighting the need for the public to support such an initiative. 

“…we need people to support this initiative because we are not going to turn any child away, but we have to pay the bills, nurses, drugs, and other services and staff; thus the need for the donations,” he said.

On his part, the Executive President of the CBC, Rev Dr Teke John Ekema, said the project is a dream come true because the church has been praying for such a specialised facility. 

“This groundbreaking project shows that the Cameron Baptist Convention, in partnership with the African Children's Healthcare Fund, is serious about the provision of quality healthcare, particularly to vulnerable children in Cameroon and beyond,” he said.

Drive to provide quality healthcare

Ngum Samuel, the Director of Cameroon Baptist Convention Healthcare Services, CBCHS, said the project falls in line with their drive to provide quality healthcare to all who need it as an expression of Christian love. He said the choice of Mutengene was deliberate, because it is a junction town in the South West Region and a few hours from the Douala International Airport.

Gilbert Acha Nkwenti, the Secretary General at the South West Governor’s Office, representing the Governor, saluted the vision-bearer of the Cameroon Children's Hospital Mutengene and the CBC, for investing in the healthcare of children.

He said the facility would serve as a hub for healthcare in Cameroon and the SubRegion. In this light, he said the health facility would help reduce or fight infant mortality in Cameroon, helping to boost the life span of kids. 

“The construction of the full-service hospital will serve all children, despite their socioeconomic background,” he said.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3678 of Monday January 19, 2026