The Minister of Health, Major Courage Quashigah (retd), has noted that urgent action is needed to address chronic staff shortages in the healthcare sector. Speaking at a round table conference on Human Resource for Health Development this week, the minister said staff retention mechanisms were critically needed to address the migration of health workers to developed countries. "I am told that at a point in time there were more University of Ghana Medical School-trained doctors in New York State than in the whole of Ghana," the minister said. The availability of higher wages in foreign health sectors largely explains this so-called "brain drain" of medical staff. Over the past five years, the government has had some success with a strategy to enhance salaries and expand healthcare institutions. However, the minister warned that the strategy might not be sustainable, noting that salaries currently use up nearly 90 percent of the total health sector budget. He explained that within a few years, the rate at which Ghana is training nurses will exceed the number that the government will be able to employ. "The question is whether we are paying staff and leaving nothing for them to work with," he said. Ministry of Health figures for 2005 estimate that Ghana has one medical officer for every 10,700 people. While this ratio is lower than that of some African countries, including Togo and Uganda, it is still high in comparison to South Africa, where there is one doctor for every 1,500 people. Notably, the United States has over 50 times more doctors per capita, with an estimated one doctor for every 182 people. By convening the roundtable conference, the ministry was appealing for help from development partners, health administrators and civil society groups to address these challenges. The two-day conference included discussions on expanding private sector health care, financing the health workforce and reversing worker migration. "We should not be afraid to be innovative and use methods and interventions that will benefit our country,” Major Quashigah said In addition to a general shortage of health workers, the disproportionate concentration of health workers in urban areas remains a serious concern. In a presentation, the Upper East Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Korku Awoonor-Williams, lamented that health services in Ghana's three northern regions had deteriorated in the past five years. He said doctor/population ratios in the north had reached one doctor for every 90,000 people and linked the shortage to the regions' high rate of maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. "Staff trained in the northern regions get posted to better endowed southern regions, with no corresponding postings to the north," Dr Awoonor-Williams said. According to him, between 2004 and 2007, only 10 percent of medical officers posted to the northern regions reported for duty and suggested that a system must be put in place to monitor and enforce officer postings, if that problem is to be corrected. So far, incentive programmes initiated by the Ministry of Health have failed to correct regional disparities. Major Quashigah blamed multilateral institutions for inhibiting progress. Their economic policies, he said, limited the government's ability to offer incentives to health workers. He emphasised that Ghana's health sector should not be sacrificed for economic development. "The need to develop a sustainable human resource capacity should be a central element of the support provided by our development partners," the minister suggested. Source: Daily Graphic