The Minister for Health, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye has highlighted some measures to be implemented by his outfit to curb the surge in Ghanaian medical professionals leaving the country for greener pastures.
This follows Ghanaian medical professionals calling on the government to urgently intervene to halt the mass exodus of nurses and other essential medical practitioners from Ghana, which has begun taking a toll on the country’s healthcare system.
According to the worried medical professionals, nearly 4000 nurses left Ghana for Europe and America in 2023 alone in search of better job opportunities.
Various stakeholders fear this worrying development will cause an imminent shortage of healthcare professionals if no urgent measures are taken to address it.
Apart from nurses, dentists are among the medical professionals predominantly leaving the country for greener pastures abroad.
The Dean of KNUST School of Medicine and Dentistry, Prof. Akwasi Antwi-Kusi is thus urging the government to promptly come up with initiatives to discourage the disturbing phenomenon as, just a few dentists are in the country.
“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 health care workers.”
“If the ongoing trend is not checked, it will pose significant challenges to the provision of quality and accessible health care 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.”
Reacting to this, the health minister, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye gave an assurance of addressing various challenges associated with dental services in particular and other pressing issues in the 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 says 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.”
These remarks were made during the 33rd Annual General Congress of the Ghana Dental Association (GDA) in Kumasi on the theme “Strengthening the GDA: An All-Inclusive Membership for Tomorrow’s Success.