Recruitment of Nurses: Beware of 'last-minute' political gimmick - Minority to Ghanaians

The Minority in Parliament believes that the decision to recruit nurses and midwives is political and a move to garner votes.

In a statement issued by the Ministry of Health, the Finance Ministry is reported to have given clearance for the employment of 15,200 nurses and midwives.

The statement indicated that the recruitment process will begin on August 5 and end on August 29, 2024.

However, the Minority, addressing the press in Parliament, said it is just a move to garner votes.

“It is nothing more than an electioneering strategy to deceive nurses who have had to suffer, in some cases, four years of unemployment to reelect into power a government that, if elected, will wait for another election cycle before opening recruitment portals into the Ghana Health Service.

This political gimmickry has precedence which can easily be cited. In the first term of the Akufo-Addo government, of which Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia was the head of the economic management team, general recruitment of health workers, especially nurses and midwives, was deferred to the period spanning November 4 to November 15, 2020, a few weeks before elections as part of a broad campaign strategy.

Once voted into office, health graduates had to suffer a similar fate of waiting for four years to be recruited into the Ghana Health Service, resulting in poor healthcare delivery owing to a high attrition rate of highly skilled healthcare workers without replacement, from 251,527 in 2021 to a low of 182,233 in 2023.”