About 2,000 nurses working in state and mission health facilities in the country have migrated abroad in recent years, the Ministry of Health has said.

At least, 1,400 of the emigrant nurses worked under the Ghana Health Service (GHS), while the remaining 600 worked at facilities of the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG).

The Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, who said this when he took his turn at the Minister’s Press briefing in Accra yesterday, did not, however, indicate the period the migration happened.

He said the situation had not significantly challenged work at health facilities.

"We are not getting very serious distress messages from the facilities that if we don’t bring new ones, they can’t work. We are managing the situation," the minister added.

He said although the phenomenon of health workers’ migration was a global occurrence, the MoH was working closely with the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations to streamline the migration policy to address current and future emerging issues.

Mr Agyemang-Manu, who focused on three main areas of achievements —policies, strategic plans, collaborations and legislations; human resources for health achievements and national E-health project, and health infrastructure projects, added that 636 nurses and midwives specialists were trained from 2019 to 2022, while 888 senior medical specialists also received training in various areas.

On recruitment, he said about 152,472 were employed from 2017 to 2022.

Achievements

Mr Agyemang-Manu mentioned the establishment of a vaccine institute in the country, the designation of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) in August this year as a regional centre of regulatory excellence in vaccines regulatory oversight in Africa by the African Union Development Agency and Drugs Laboratory of the FDA’s Centre for Laboratory Services and Research attainment of a WHO-Prequalified Quality Control Laboratory status, the first in the ECOWAS region.

Under the national E-health project, Mr Agyemang-Manu said the ministry had since 2017, deployed an electronic patient record system as part of a national digitalisation agenda for the health sector to improve access to patient data at the point of care, improve claims management and systems harmonisation.

Ongoing projects

The minister further mentioned the construction of eight hospital projects which include the Upper West Regional Hospital, the Ga East Municipal Hospital, the Twifo Praso Hospital, the Tepa District Hospital, the Nsawam District Hospital, the Asante Akim Hospital, the Kumasi Regional Hospital and the Salaga District Hospital.

Others are the construction and equipping of phase two of the University of Ghana Medical Centre, completion of seven district hospitals and integrated IT systems in the country; construction, retooling and equipping of four selected health facilities in the Eastern Region; major rehabilitation of the Tamale Teaching Hospital, construction and rehabilitation of treatment and holding centres and construction of Community-Based Health Planning Services (CHPS) at selected locations in the country.

Other ongoing projects include the rehabilitation of the Bolgatanga Regional Hospital phase two; design, construction and equipping of the Eastern Regional Hospital, rehabilitation of the Effia Nkwanta Hospital, the construction of a new Western Regional Hospital and the construction of a urology and nephology centre of excellence at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.