The Ministry of Health says it has introduced a comprehensive multi-sectoral strategy to address the growing backlog of unemployed nurses awaiting posting across the country.
The intervention follows the ministry’s recent recruitment drive for the 2021 batch of trained nurses, although more than 100,000 nurses from 94 health training institutions across four batches remain unemployed.
In an exclusive interview with JoyNews, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Tony Goodman, said the long waiting period faced by unemployed nurses would soon be reduced through a strategic approach aimed at clearing the backlog.
The situation where trained nurses and allied health professionals remain at home for years after completing their training has become a recurring challenge in Ghana’s health sector. Health authorities have expressed concern that prolonged periods without practice could affect the skills and knowledge acquired during training.
Mr Goodman explained that the ministry was determined to tackle the issue to ensure that trained health professionals are absorbed into the system within a reasonable period.
“If I go to school and I come and in my six years or five years, I am still home, my trade, whatever I went to learn, would also leave me. And that is why we are doing all of these things,” he said.
He added, “It is a challenge we have come to meet. We will make sure that we deal with it and bring it to the barest minimum so that we can have a safe environment.”
As part of measures to address the backlog, the ministry has begun recruiting the 2021 batch of nurses and plans to conduct two recruitment exercises annually to speed up the absorption of unemployed graduates.
Mr Goodman disclosed that more than 107,000 trained nurses are currently without jobs, stressing that failure to address the situation could create further challenges for the health sector.
“The number of cohorts that were trained in the past and have not been given jobs has created that backlog that we have. If you look at the projection I made, all of these numbers, over 107,000 are currently home,” he said.
“That is why the ministry has begun the recruitment of the 2021 batch. So, we will gradually do it. Every year, we will do two batches so that we can clear them,” he added.
The ministry is also working with nursing training institutions to introduce admission quota systems aimed at aligning the number of graduates with available employment opportunities.
According to Mr Goodman, reducing admissions will help prevent the continuous accumulation of unemployed nurses in the future.
“Then we continue to train. We will stagger the number of people who also go to training. So, the quota will be reduced to make sure that we don’t have a lot of people coming out again,” he said.
“So, it is a multi-sectoral approach we are going to use — multifaceted — to make sure that we have a proper approach to deal with this problem,” he added.
Meanwhile, nurses from the 2021 batch who successfully applied during the recent recruitment exercise have received appointment letters to begin work.
A total of 107,141 trained nurses are currently awaiting employment.
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