Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Tony Goodman, has revealed that the ministry is not capable of posting about 100,000 health workers that are currently unemployed this year.

Engaging the media on Thursday, May 29, Mr Goodman bemoaned the continuous training of a large number of individuals seeking to work in the health sector by private institutions despite the limited slots for employment.

He noted that these individuals who have been unemployed for half a decade would be recruited in batches to fill the vacant positions in subsequent years.

“We cannot recruit everybody this year; that is going to be suicidal. We have nearly 100,000 individuals who are currently at home and have not been employed for five years. So, we cannot use a year to recruit all of them."

“You have various private training institutions that, because they have to run their institution and make a profit to be able to pay teachers, would admit a lot of numbers, churn them out, and tell the Ministry of Health to recruit them."

“The Ministry is training because there is a requirement for a particular region or so, but they [the private institutions] do not have that. Yet they train them and tell the Ministry of Health to recruit them,” he stated.

This comes after the Parliamentary Committee on Sanitation and Water Resources urged the Ministry of Finance to release funds for the immediate posting of over 2,000 Environmental Health Officer graduates, unposted since 2021, to help tackle the country’s worsening sanitation crisis.

In March 2024, a Coalition of Nurses and Midwives in the Northern Region described the previous government’s failure to post them to various health facilities as depressing.

The graduate unemployed nurses and midwives numbering over 75,000 bemoaned the lack of employment 4 years after completion of school.

The coalition on Friday, March 1, 2024, hit the streets in the region to express their discontent with the government’s failure to provide financial clearance and permanent employment.

The group registered its dissatisfaction primarily with the government and its agencies, specifically the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Ministry of Finance (MoF) over the perceived failure of these entities to grant financial clearance and secure permanent employment for more than 75,000 graduate nurses and midwives who have undergone training at various accredited public universities and training colleges.

With regard to posting, the government is keen on sending health workers and teachers to rural areas that have been deprived for years.

President Mahama plans to introduce a 20% allowance for teachers and health workers who accept postings to rural areas.

He announced his intention while seeking power ahead of the 2024 general elections. He noted that the incentive aims to encourage more personnel to serve in rural areas, bridging the development gap between rural and urban communities.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) is considering embarking on a series of industrial actions over poor working conditions.

The Health Ministry, in response, has entreated the association to reconsider its decision following engagements with the sector minister, Hon Mintah Akandoh over their challenges.

The ministry, in a statement, further indicated that since taking office, the minister has met with the association’s leadership on five occasions. Although the revised Conditions of Service were initially set to take effect in 2024, their implementation has encountered delays.

The Ministry believes that "using the lives of patients as leverage in the demand for the implementation of a collective bargaining agreement is not the appropriate course of action."