Accra, Sept 08, GNA – The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Minority Caucus, has kicked against Government’s decision to recruit untrained and unlicensed Senior High School (SHS) leavers to fill gaps within the healthcare system.
Mr Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, Ranking Member of Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, speaking at a press conference in Accra, called on the Government to prioritise the uptake of trained, qualified, and licensed health service professionals before recruiting other groups into the health service delivery system.
He said this is necessary considering the current high attrition rate within the public health sector and prudent if the objective of protection of the public purse was to remain paramount.
“We the Minority in Parliament find it highly unfortunate and irresponsible that with the large numbers of trained doctors, nurses and other allied health professionals at home and waiting to be absorbed into the public health system, government would rather opt to recruit untrained and unlicensed high school leavers to fill in gaps within the healthcare system.
“These ever-widening gaps of professionals care within the health system is the direct consequence of Government’s lack of sensitivity and concern for the welfare of health professionals.”
He said contrary to the propaganda and noise government makes on addressing the welfare of health professionals, most professionals could confirm that their conditions of service had deteriorated over the years.
Mr. Akandoh alleged the economic challenges of hyperinflation and unprecedented depreciation of the Ghana Cedi under the Bawumia-led Economic Management Team had eroded whatever value accrues as meagre salaries of all Ghanaian workers.
He said the Government’s lack of concern for public health workers in this hyperinflationary period had exacerbated an already bad economic situation leading to high attrition among the workforces.
The Ranking Member noted that in June this year, the Ghana Registered Nurses, and Midwives Association (GRNMA) informed Ghanaians that in the first quarter of 2022, over 3,000 trained nurses and midwives left the shores of Ghana to seek greener pastures abroad; adding that the story was not different among practicing doctors in Ghana.
He said alarmingly, general practitioners, specialists and consultants had all joined a lengthy line of Ghanaian health professionals waiting for clearance or job offers from abroad to leave this country.
Mr. Akandoh said the situation had become critical to the point that Ghana was currently experiencing losses of general practitioners and specialists needed to handle cases across the healthcare continuum.
He said under these prevailing conditions, one would expect that government would ramp-up its uptake of trained and licensed nurses, doctors, physician assistants, pharmacists, laboratory technicians and other health professionals to mitigate the impact of the dwindling numbers of these professionals on the Ghanaian public.
He said unfortunately, their checks reveal a dangerous attempt to replace trained and licensed professionals with unemployed SHS graduates for cheap political returns that would make an already precarious situation even worse.
“If a country working within the limits of scarce resources, has in excess of 19,000 diploma-nurses, 10,729 degree-nurses and 1,000 trained-doctors who have completed their housemanship sitting at home, what logical reasoning warrants the intake of untrained and unlicensed SHS leavers into our healthcare system?” He questioned.
He noted that there were some who would quickly retort that Kufuor, Atta Mills and Mahama administrations all employed young and unemployed SHS leavers to assist trained staff in what they consider as the mundane duties of record keeping.
He said however, during those periods medical training institutions were fewer with even fewer numbers of trained professionals warranting the additions of GYEEDA/YEA recruits to aid at the basic levels.
He said it was also not government policy to leave trained professionals unemployed while recruiting untrained school leavers.
“This new government’s initiative amounts to a misplaced priority and as a country we cannot afford to abandon our investments in human capital like the many abandoned government projects littered across the country,” he said.
Mr. Akandoh said it was therefore in the interest of the government and all its agents and assigns to do all they could to avoid causing monetary loss to the state.
Source: Ghana News Agency
