The Ministry of Health (MoH) reports that it is launching a volunteer program to help in underprivileged and rural areas, particularly for the more than 6,000 health graduates who are looking for work.
The ministry states that health professionals who finished their training between 2022 and the present and were excluded from the current recruitment process for the 2021 batch of nurses and midwives would be covered by the volunteer arrangement.
Frederick Mensah-Acheampong, the Ministry of Health’s Director of Human Resources, said at a news conference in Accra on Monday, May 18, 2026, that the procedures will start in the upcoming weeks along with a mop-up effort to fill any open positions.
Participants in the volunteer program would get stipends and be taken into consideration for next mainstream recruitment campaigns.
“These volunteers will be given some stipends and then they will also be considered, they will be given some priority when we are going to do the main recruitment,” Mr Acheampong said.
He did not specify the conditions of the arrangement or the amount to be paid in stipends.
In an effort to enhance the delivery of preventive and community healthcare, Mr. Acheampong said that nursing assistant preventative cadres would be given priority under the volunteer program, followed by other assistant categories.
In order to fill positions in rural and underprivileged areas, the ministry has announced intentions to start a separate recruitment campaign for medical officers.
Mr. Acheampong said that the procedure would start in the upcoming weeks but did not specify how many doctors would be hired.
He clarified that the action is in response to the nation’s mounting backlog of unemployed medical professionals.
According to him, the ministry currently estimates that about 105,000 trained health professionals remain unemployed nationwide.
The figure represents an increase from the 74,000 backlog earlier mentioned by the Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, in Parliament in 2025.
According to Mr. Acheampong, regardless of the number of open positions at any given time, the ministry planned to divide available financial clearance among all professional categories.
“Even if you get one, you will share for everybody to get some form of it,” he said.
Before taking on their duties, Mr. Acheampong’s successful candidates from the present recruiting process will report to their district health directorates for interviews and document verification.
According to him, the recently hired medical personnel would start working on July 1, 2026.
He said, “We are not going to allow anyone to work and they will not be paid,”
Mr. Acheampong added that in order to enable another round of hiring, the ministry anticipated receiving extra budgetary clearance from the Ministry of Finance before the end of the year.
He said that once the approval was obtained following the mop-up activity, the recruitment portal would be reactivated.
Additionally, he suggested that instead of waiting for recruitment periods to be announced, health professionals could update their records on the ministry’s recruitment portal.
“If your records are not there, you can contact the ministry so that it can help you to rectify them. You don’t want to wait until recruitment is out before you rush to do some of these things,” he said.
Source: newsthemegh.com