Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: GHANAIAN medical professionals are leaving the west African nation in droves. Many believe their faith has finally been rewarded when, after years of planning, they reach the promised land of the well-equipped, well-resourced hospitals of the US. Since the Covid pandemic wreaked havoc on global healthcare systems, the number of nurses, midwives and doctors to have left Ghana has risen exponentially, according to a report in The Guardian.
It is estimated that at least 6,000 nurses left in 2024, driven by factors such as low wages, unpaid salaries and worsening infrastructure. While the US is a huge draw, nurses are also migrating to other countries including the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and the UAE. When Bright Ansah, a nursing officer in Accra, goes searching for colleagues who have failed to show up for a shift at the overstretched hospital where he works, he knows where to look. “When you see ‘In God we trust’ on their WhatsApp status, that’s when you know they’re already in the US,” he says.
In May and October, Ghana’s Foreign Ministry signed agreements with Jamaica and Grenada to send hundreds of nurses to the Caribbean islands, expanding on a 2019 agreement with Barbados. In July, the Health Minister announced that more than 13 countries had expressed interest in establishing similar recruitment arrangements. Ghana is also one of 55 countries on the WHO support and safeguard list, which identifies nations facing the most pressing workforce challenges related to universal health coverage.
Nursing in Ghana is not seen as a paying profession by many. They work long hours for a meagre pay. One nurse said the average monthly salary of 3,000 Ghanaian cedis (£197) is “demoralising” and concedes that some nurses have resorted to selling medications to patients as a means of survival. Another nurse said she spent the past 12 years nursing patients in various hospitals in Accra, and had enough of the stress and chaos. Of the 15 nurses she started with in 2017 at the hospital where she worked, only three remain in Ghana.
