The Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) has raised concerns about the adverse effects the bilateral agreement between the government of Ghana and Britain to send trained Ghanaian nurses to the United Kingdom may have on the country’s health system.
The Association says, although the agreement is laudable, there might be a drought of professionally trained nurses should the agreement take full effect.
In an interview with Citi News, President of the GRNMA, Perpetual Ofori Ampofo, indicated there were a few trained nurses in the system currently, hence the need for government to train more professional nurses to avoid a negative impact of the bilateral agreement.
“You realised that we have a lot more of the certificate holders as against a lower number in terms of the diploma holders and degree holders. So we are training them in high numbers, meanwhile, there are professional members who are not the best, and these are the same people taking care of Ghanaians, so we need to change and also look at building the infrastructure of GRNMA, and helping build the caucus, so that they will be in a better position to train more specialist nurses and midwives, to boost the human resources capacity of the nation.”
“At that point, you will definitely have adequate numbers to work in Ghana and at the same time migrate elsewhere to work. But in the current circumstances, although we cannot abrogate what we have done with the UK, it’s going to come back and hit us,” the President of GRNMA said.
Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang Manu, during the 2023 Budget debate on Monday, December 5, 2022, on the Floor of Parliament, said, “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. “Ghana is going to benefit from the little money that the UK government will pass on. For every single nurse that goes away, when we finish the agreement, it is likely we will get over 1000 pounds to come and support the health system in Ghana”.