We can export unemployed nurses for cash

The Deputy Health Minister-designate and Member of Parliament for Akim Oda Alexander Akwasi Acquah has suggested that Ghanaian nurses can be exported for cash. He said the number of unemployed nurses is so large that the government despite its efforts to absorb all has not been able to do so yet. That he said presents an opportunity for the country to look for alternatives.

Mr Acquah’s argument is on the basis that the country has many training institutions which can be used to train nurses for countries that need their services. Speaking to Citi FM on the subject, he said, the government has done its best to clear the backlog of unemployed nurses but there are still some at home.

“We have Nurses today in Ghana who want employment. As a politician, as someone on the health committee and someone who has links to many hospitals, you have a lot of people coming to you that I want the job. I mean they’ve finished school, postings have not come, government is not able to place all of them even though the government has done so well,” he told Eyewitness News.

“This government has employed so many people, the backlog has been cleared up to this point but we still have some few nurses at home. So if these have been trained and packaged well, and they are taken out, we have a lot of people, because we have a lot of training schools now and we have a lot of people who want to enter into the Nursing profession because not everyone wants to go the university and the other training institutions.”

Ghana exports unemployed nurses

Many students who studied nursing in Ghanaian training schools graduate and sit at home for years before often getting enrolled. For some time now, the Ministry of Health has been saddled with the issue as financial clearance for their employment has always been delayed.

In recent times, however, the government has shifted its attention to sending some of the trained professionals to other countries. In December 2022, the then Minister of Health Kwaku Agyeman-Manu said in Parliament that the government was working on a bilateral agreement to export nurses to the United Kingdom.

“We are engaging with the government of the United Kingdom, and we are just about to sign a memorandum of the agreement after cabinet approval to begin to send nurses for training and work there and come back home after three years,” he said during the 2023 budget debate by the house.

According to him, it was a way to generate revenue for the government. He hinted that each nurse that was sent to the UK was likely to generate at least £1,000 for the government.

“Ghana is going to benefit from the little money that the UK government will pass on. For every single nurse that goes away, when we finish the agreement, it is likely we will get over 1000 pounds to come and support the health system in Ghana,” he said in Parliament according to Nurses in Ghana.

Meanwhile, in November 2019, the government of Ghana signed an agreement with Barbados to export nurses to the Caribbean country. The agreement was signed on the sidelines of the visit by Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados to Ghana.