By Jibril Abdul Mumuni
Accra, Jan. 23, GNA– Public Services International (PSI) and its health sector affiliates in Ghana and Nigeria have issued a warning about the accelerating exodus of skilled health and care workers from the African continent.
In a media statement jointly signed by heads of the respective unions, they said the situation was a deepening crisis that threatened to collapse public health systems.
The warning came during a high-level Joint Symposium convened by unions including Nigeria’s National Association of Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), the Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN), Ghana’s GRNMA, and the Health Services Workers Union (HSWU).
They cited underinvestment, privatisation, unsafe working conditions, conflicts, climate-related disasters, and unmanaged migration as the primary drivers pushing workers abroad.
The scale of the problem is huge as Africa is projected to face a shortage of 6.1 million health workers by 2030, representing more than half of the global deficit.
With 85 per cent of the continent’s health workforce employed in the public sector, their departure cripples national healthcare access.
Nigeria, for instance, has a skilled health worker density of just 1.83 per 1,000 people, far below the WHO benchmark of 4.45.
The Unions stressed that this migration was not merely a search for better pay but a flight from systemic failure.
They said health workers faced unsafe environments, a lack of decent work and professional development, and pervasive issues like gender-based violence and discrimination, with women in nursing and midwifery disproportionately affected.
The Unions noted that the search for “greener pastures” often led to exploitation.
They highlighted cases of African health workers falling victim to sexual abuse and exploitation by fraudulent recruiters in destination countries.
The unions stated that the mass Health and Care Workforce migration being witnessed today is the result of long-standing structural failures.
They said that without prioritizing health workers’ voices and rights in policy, including through genuine social dialogue with unions, strategies to manage migration and address shortages are doomed to fail.
GNA
23 Jan. 2026
Edited by Samuel Osei-Frempong