By Jibril Abdul Mumuni
Accra, Dec. 14, GNA – Mr. Howard Catton, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), International Council of Nurses (ICN), has blamed the exodus of Ghanaian nurses abroad Ghana to governments’ and private sector’s failure to invest in nursing jobs.
He said that governments lack of investment in the nursing profession, particularly increasing salaries and the absence of prospects for advanced training, forced nurses to leave the country to seek proper remuneration and professional growth overseas.
The Chief Executive of the Global Body for Nurses spoke at the Executive Council Meeting of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwifery Association (GRNMA).
The meeting attended by the regional heads of the association afforded a peer-reviewing platform for the heads to learn from one another on how to advance the nursing profession in Ghana.
The meeting also provided a deliberative platform with the regulator Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwifery Council on how to enhance the regulation of the profession in Ghana.
The CEO said investments in nursing jobs by the government and private sector partners must include decent pay with improved conditions of service.
He emphasised that investment must prioritise creating opportunities for capacity building towards improving the competencies of nurses to become specialists.
The CEO added that Ghana was not getting a fair deal in terms of the number of nurses migrating and exiting the country to practice abroad.
The CEO said based on the amount the government had spent in training the nurses,the amount it received as compensation for the human resource lost was woefully not enough.
“I don’t think that somewhere like Ghana is getting a good deal for the numbers of nurses that are leaving and migrating. In the UK, the average cost of educating a nurse is around £50,000. It’s around about £50,000.It will vary from country to country.
But that means that for every 100 nurses that go, the lost cost of education, the regulators around the table is about 5 million.
If I do my simple math, you said 400 to 500 nurses are going a month, migrating a month. Is the government getting 25 million a month in compensation for those nurses? No, they’re not,” he said.
He said that although the exodus of nurses had enormous advantages, particularly the remittances sent by nurses, the process must be streamlined to ensure that Ghana had a fair deal.
The CEO said that although nurses were key to addressing health issues globally, they did not get the level of investment, support, recognition, and respect from the government and private sector partners.
He said that around the world, issues with pay being held down, poor terms and conditions, nurses experiencing violence and harassment at work, and inequalities were affecting nursing professionals.
Mrs. Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo, President, GRNMA, said the nursing profession in Ghana was presently facing many challenges, ranging from delay in posting trained nurses from various colleges, stalled salary negotiations due to litigation issues from some members, and absence of study leave for advance training.
The president said a backlog of four badges of trained nurses from 2020 had not been posted.
She added that salary negotiations with the government stalled when some aggrieved members filed a lawsuit to halt the process.
These challenges, according to her, must urgently be addressed to improve the nursing profession in the country.
GNA