The Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) has expressed worry about the potential negative impacts on the nation’s healthcare system of the bilateral agreement between the governments of Ghana and Britain to send qualified Ghanaian nurses to the United Kingdom.
The Association claims that even while the agreement is admirable, if it were to fully implement, there might be a shortage of professionally educated nurses.
In order to prevent a negative effect of the bilateral agreement, the GRNMA’s president, Perpetual Ofori Ampofo, stated that there are now only a few trained nurses in the system. As a result, the government must train more professional nurses.
“You saw that we have a higher percentage of certificate holders than diploma and degree holders, which is surprising. As a result, we are training a large number of professionals, but some of them are not the best, and they are still caring for Ghanaians. As a result, we need to change and also consider improving the GRNMA’s infrastructure and supporting the caucus so that they will be better able to train more specialized nurses and midwives to increase the capacity of the country’s human resources.
By that time, you will undoubtedly have a sufficient number of workers to work both in Ghana and elsewhere. But given the current situation, even though we cannot undo what we did with the UK, it will come back to bite us, according to the GRNMA President.
During the 2023 Budget debate on Monday, December 5, 2022, on the Floor of Parliament, the Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang Manu, stated, “We are engaging with the government of the United Kingdom, and we are just about to sign a memorandum of agreement after cabinet approval to begin to send nurses for training and work there and come back home after three years. When the contract is ended, it’s likely that we will receive more than 1000 pounds to come and support Ghana’s healthcare system for every single nurse that leaves.