50,000 Nurses To Get Gov’t Jobs This Year

The minister of Health, Dr. Kweku Agyeman Manu, has disclosed that government hopes to absorb about 50,000 nurses into the Health sector by the end of 2019.

The minister, who was speaking at the commissioning of a New Polyclinic at Sege in the Ada West District of the Greater Accra Region, revealed that the current nurse to patient ratio in Ghana stands at 1:600, which is far better than the World Health Organization’s prescribed 1:7,500, indicating that Ghana has more trained nurses than expected.

He noted that government has currently halted the opening of new nursing training schools in the country.

“Since last 2 years, we have stopped opening more training institutions because we have exceeded the W.H.O nurse to patient ratio, other than that we will train, and train, and train and the nurses will be more than the patients.

“We can open more nursing training institutions only when we have other avenues to employ them, and that is what the President is doing to send some outside and so we have to pray for that program to be successful”, he said.

The minister also refuted claims that the NPP government had abandoned all health projects started by the previous NDC administration, pointing to the fact that part of the land on which the Sege Polyclinic was established, was acquired by the John Mahama government.

On his part, the DCE for Sege, Hon. Adzoteye Lawer Akrofi, expressed the Assembly’s appreciation to the Ghanaian and Australian governments for their collaborated effort in putting up the facility, saying: “It will help the indigenes to access good and quality health care in the District without having to travel far”.

He said the Polyclinic was strategically placed along the Tema – Aflao highway in other to also serve would-be accident victims as it is the only major health facility along the 80km highway, before Sogakope.

The 30-bed facility also comes with a maternity ward, laboratory, an operating theatre, Ultra Sound Facility, Obstetric ward, Pediatric ward, a 1-bed morgue, Maternity ward, X-ray, and many more.

Before the establishment of the polyclinic, the district had only two clinics at Sege and Anyamam, a situation that made it very difficult for many people to access health care.

Today, the district can boast of two additional health facilities, comprising the Sege polyclinic and a new clinic at Koluedor, which was also commissioned last week by the Roman Catholic Church.