The widespread migration of nurses and other health professionals from Ghana in search of higher incomes and more generous pay packages elsewhere has not yet had an adverse impact on the delivery of healthcare services in the country, at least not in terms of absolute numbers.
This information was divulged by Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), during a news briefing held by the Minister in Accra on Thursday on the subject of increasing access to quality health care.
He stated that the service had increased its capacity to provide primary healthcare to Ghanaians by recruiting 33,625 new staff members over the course of the previous three years.
Exodus of nurses, other health professionals not affecting healthcare delivery
The General Health Service had raised its workforce capacity from 86,000 to 120,000 by the beginning of the first half of 2023 and was taking steps to replace employees who had left the organization by providing more training.
Dr. Kuma-Aboagye stated that the National Health Service was in the process of implementing novel techniques and programs as part of its Network of Practice (NOP) in order to increase the number of people who have access to primary healthcare at the sub-district level.
The National Outpatient Programme (NOP) is a paradigm of care in which the Ghana Health Service (GHS) consciously establishes networks of health facilities at the sub-district level and encourages them to operate efficiently in order to promote primary health care.
According to Dr. Kuma-Aboagye, between 400 and 500 health centers will be transformed into model facilities by having their infrastructure, equipment, and human resources modernized. These facilities will then be able to provide high-quality medical care.
According to him, the Ghanaian parliamentary body had granted permission for a World Bank facility worth 150 million dollars to support the implementation of the Networks of Practice project.
He urged the people of Ghana to recognize the value of the work done by health professionals who had shown enough patriotism to remain in the country in order to serve their homeland.
According to the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association, during the course of the previous three years, more than 5,000 nurses and other health staff have left Ghana in search of better opportunities elsewhere in the world. This exodus is a direct result of the unsatisfactory working conditions in Ghana.
During this time, Dr. Alberta Biritwum-Nyarko, who is the Director in Charge of Policy Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation at the GHS, gave a presentation in which she stated that the NOP project would involve a group of public and private health facilities that would be deliberately interconnected through an administrative and clinical management model in order to provide improved health services to customers.
Through this project, access to high-quality medical care and other population-based services would be expanded for all people by the year 2030.
It would improve the availability of medical equipment and logistical management to clients, as well as provide services that are available around the clock, give a rapid response to clinical and public health situations, improve input from the community, and provide services around the clock.