The Ministry of Health has received financial clearance to recruit 4,000 private medical practitioners to work in public health facilities in the country.

Public Relations Officer of the Ministry, Robert Cudjoe, said: “…the possibility that these people will be engaged in the next few months I believe is there”.

He told TV3’s Daniel Opoku on Monday that the government has within the last 13 months far recruited a total of 17,000 medical practitioners.

Of the 17,000 health officers recruited, he said 882 are medical officers, while 395 are health officers.

A total of 3,058 are general and mental health nurses, 1, 946 are midwives and 1,896 are community nurses with certificates and diplomas.

Health assistants were 3,918 while 2,576 are allied health professionals with 1,312 being degree-holding nurses. Pharmacy technicians comprised 97

The rest are 14 physician assistants, 89 field technicians and 90 technical assistants as well as

48 technical officers, 55 health promotion officers and seven lab technicians.

The number also included 35 dental surgery assistants and 36 technical officers for nutrition.

Mr Cudjoe said the Ministry has received clearance for the recruitment of 4,000 medical practitioners to add up to the 17,000 already employed.

“The government policy was that it didn’t want people to continue sitting at home but to clear all of them [and] it’s been able to recruit 17,009. Some of them have stayed home for the past four years or so,” he explained.

Mr Cudjoe thus expressed concern about some junior doctors complaining about their recruitment after the government had secured clearance for them.

“We had already secured their clearance and we’re working towards it” he said.