The 2021 Cohort of Unemployed Nurses Association of Ghana has petitioned the Minority Caucus in Parliament for an urgent intervention to compel the government to deploy more than 11,000 trained health professionals who remain jobless years after qualification.
Led by their General Secretary, Gideon Nsiah, representatives of the association converged on Parliament to seek legislative backing after months of unyielding silence from the Ministry of Health. Speaking to journalists following an administrative engagement with opposition lawmakers, Nsiah revealed that out of 18,000 nurses who completed their training within the 2021 cycle, only an estimated 6,500 have been integrated into the public health system.
“The rest of us are still home. We have our licenses, we are ready to work, but there are no financial clearances for us,” Nsiah stated, detailing the economic hardships confronting qualified professionals who have remained idle for nearly three years post-national service. He highlighted a troubling paradox where trained personnel languish at home while public health facilities nationwide suffer severe understaffing.
Nsiah warned of an escalating crisis within the health sector labor market, noting that the backlog continues to compounding with successive 2022, 2023, and 2024 cohorts also awaiting employment. The association is demanding that the Ministry of Finance explicitly capture their financial clearance in the upcoming mid-year budget review.
“We came to Parliament because we believe our leaders must hear us. We are begging the government, the Ministry of Health, and the Finance Ministry to capture us in the mid-year budget review,” Nsiah said, adding, “We are not asking for too much. We just want to serve Ghana. Post us to work.”
Responding to the petition, Nana Ayew Afriye, the Ranking Member of Parliament’s Health Committee, strongly condemned the current administration’s recruitment strategies and pledged to lead a parliamentary push for the immediate absorption of the remaining 11,000 nurses.
Afriye criticized the policy of staggered, piecemeal postings, characterizing it as a departure from previous standard practices that guaranteed swift, comprehensive employment for medical graduates.
“That’s not what the NPP used to do. We pick all of them. You don’t post them in batches,” Afriye asserted. “Leaving trained nurses unemployed for nearly three years is unacceptable.”
The Health Committee Ranking Member accused the government of reneging on its policy directives regarding automatic postings, leaving thousands of qualified young professionals in financial distress. Afriye expressed gratitude to the association for formally engaging the legislature and assured them that the Minority Caucus would leverage the impending mid-year budget review to demand full financial clearances from the sector ministries.
Eugenia Ewoenam Osei
