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0 Stakeholders at the Global Health Partnership Programme, the Ghana Sharing and Learning Event are urging government to implement the ‘Rural Incentive Package’ which was completed and submitted to Parliament by the previous government.
The package, which seeks to attract and retain health professionals in deprived areas, is yet to be implemented despite the growing threat of the exodus of healthcare workers in the country.
Reports suggest Ghana has one of the highest rates of healthcare worker migration within sub-saharan Africa with over 50% of doctors and 24% of nurses trained in the country now working overseas.
The Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) revealed that 732 nurses left the country since January 2024. Aside this exodus, many of the healthcare professionals are rebellious towards working in rural areas for the same reasons.
The poor working conditions, subpar salaries, a lack of respect for healthcare professionals and lack of incentives to attract and retain, remain the challenges which the “Rural Incentive Package’ seeks to address.
Information gathered at the event revealed that the Ministry of Health has already placed the programme on its action plan for the year to validate the true deprived districts.
But the President of the GRNMA, Perpetual Ofori Ampofo sees no reason for a re-validation.
‘‘As far as I’m concerned, it was a brilliant job that was done. With a lot of technical support from the WHO and we came out with brilliant packages that could be offered as incentive packages for those who will accept to work in the rural areas and so we have to all follow-up and there’s a general concern so I expect that the partners here will collectively push now that we have a new government, to package it now and submit it to cabinet through the Ministry of Health.
“We are being told that the Ministry of Health still wants to do some validation of which area qualify as underserved, rural or deprived, but as far as I’ m concerned during the technical work, we were able to thrash out all these things. Because a lot of work has been done with the Ghana Health Service.” She explained.
The Global Health Workforce Programme (GHWP), a major initiative aimed at strengthening Ghana’s health workforce and health system and advancing progress toward Universal Health Coverage, hosted its sharing and learning event in Accra.
The event showcased Health Partnerships’ achievements to date and fostered discussions on the effectiveness and sustainability of interventions, towards a strengthened Ghanaian health workforce and health system for the future.
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