British High Commissioner to Ghana, Harriet Thompson, says Ghana’s population has a surfeit of trained nurses.

This she says is the justification for the ongoing negotiations between Ghana’s Ministry of Health and the UK’s Ministry of Health for trained Ghanaian nurses to be drafted to work in the UK in a controlled manner.

This comes on the back of Ghana being red-listed by the World Health Organisation as part of countries richer states are discouraged to enlist health workers from, due to the lower ratio of health workers to population there.

According to Ms. Thompson, while the UK needs more health workers to serve its ever growing population, it also does not want the situation where poorer countries, like Ghana, are robbed of much needed health workers.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, she stated that to prevent a mass exodus of trained nurses, in particular, to the UK, the Memorandum of Understanding currently being negotiated will ensure that the migration of nurses from Ghana to the UK is effectively managed to avoid brain drain.

“But in fact, the situation in Ghana is more nuanced. And there is actually in some ways a surfeit of health workers. There are too many trained nurses for the population to warrant it. So we are discussing with Ghana a memorandum of understanding that would allow some of those nurses to come and work in the UK in a managed way.

“So we're not seeing that Exodus that we fear, but they're able to come to the UK in controlled numbers. Were able to provide some of that training and the experience and then some of those nurses would come back to Ghana, and to bring that learning back here. So we're trying to avoid the situation whereby those well trained nurses who are not needed in Ghana are unable to go to the UK. We want those people to be able to go so our NHS, our population, can benefit from those people. Those individuals can benefit from that exposure,” she said.

She added, “But at the same time, we don't want to be one of the causes of Ghana's population, Ghana's people not having the health workers they require. You can imagine it's a sensitive issue. We've got to be sure that we get it right so we're negotiating between Ghana's Ministry of Health and Ghana's health service and our national health service in the UK and our ministry of health. Those negotiations are ongoing, but they're proceeding well there's some good understanding.”