Brain drain affects health delivery in Ghana

The continuous exodus of health professionals in Ghana is having a heavy toll on the country’s ability to deliver quality health services to the people.

Brain drain in Ghana has been described as very alarming and poses an imminent devastating consequence on people’s health.

Health Minister, Dr Richard Anane says “the brain drain in the health sector is probably as serious a threat, as HIV/AIDS, so far as its human resource consequences are concerned”. Dr. Anane noted that the government takes a serious view of the problem, more so when the USA and UK are actively recruiting health personnel to fill shortages of nurses and doctors in those developed countries.

Speaking at the opening of the 16th annual conference of the Nurse Educators Group (NEG) in Accra, he said obvious factors that have contributed to this trend, like opportunities for professional development, frustrations caused by slow and insensitive administrative process among others are being worked on.

To this end, the Health Ministry in collaboration with the Ghana Medical Association and the Ghana Registered Nurses Association, will soon present proposals for approval by Cabinet on improved conditions of service and remunerations.

The personnel management unit of the health system, which was under civil service administration, has also been transferred to the Human Resource Division of the Ministry of Health to ensure professional approach to personnel management.

Dr Anane disclosed that in the past decade, the total number of practising nurses have almost halved and specialists such as physiotherapists are virtually non existent. Currently, the doctor to patient ratio is one to16,000 people and one nurse to 3,500 people.