The Minister for Health, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye has unveiled plans aimed at curbing the increasing trend of Ghanaian medical professionals emigrating for better opportunities abroad.
This announcement comes in response to urgent appeals from medical professionals in Ghana, who are calling on the government to take action to stem the mass exodus of nurses and other essential healthcare workers.
This trend according to them is placing significant strain on the country’s healthcare system.
In 2023, nearly 4,000 nurses left Ghana for Europe and America in search of better job prospects.
Stakeholders are expressing growing concern that if this trend continues, it will lead to a critical shortage of healthcare professionals. Dentists, in particular, are among those leaving the country in significant numbers.
The Dean of the KNUST School of Medicine and Dentistry, Prof. Akwasi Antwi-Kusi, has urged the government to quickly implement measures to reverse this concerning trend, emphasizing the already limited number of dentists in Ghana.
“According to the Ghana Nurses and Midwives Association, nearly 4,000 nurses left Ghana for Europe and America in 2023 for better jobs. Without equivocation, one of the critical challenges the health sector will face in the next decade is a shortage of essential healthcare workers.”
“If the ongoing trend is not checked, it will pose significant challenges to the provision of quality and accessible healthcare for all. I am quite optimistic that the Ghana Dental Association and other professional bodies in the country are thinking through how to prevent such phenomenon in their ranks.”
In response, Dr. Okoe Boye affirmed the Ministry of Health’s commitment to addressing the challenges facing dental services and other critical areas of the healthcare sector.
“One of the things that the Ministry is going to promote and sponsor has to do with partnerships, MoUs between the training centres and the let’s say the district facilities, the health centres and possibly even the CHPS compounds.”
“I think as professionals who always want to improve or increase our knowledge, we are comfortable when we are given logbooks that say that as part of your training at Komfo Anokye go to a particular district for some one month as part of the training. So, if we fashion this very well and the relationship between the Ghana Health Service facilities, most of the government facilities outside the teaching hospitals are under Dr Kumah Aboagye.”
“If we can have MoUs between these facilities and the teaching hospitals or the regional hospitals or the big centres where dentists are comfortable to practice, then through this route, we’ll find a way to make sure that every Ghanaian gets to have an experience with the dentist. And so, I believe MoUs is the way to go.”
“The second strategy or policy would be to work together with GDA, Ghana Education Service, and the teaching hospitals so that we can increase the numbers that we train annually.”
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