Why can’t we train more health workers for export?

Ghana and Africa's unemployment rates are astonishingly very high and yet one reads regularly of the fear of brain drain and its effects on African nations. Yes, brain drain can adversely affect some sectors of the economy but in a country where unemployment rate is so high what is stopping us from strategically training more people in areas where huge employment vacancies exist for those professions in Ghana and abroad?

In Ghana there is always shortage of health workers such as nurses, doctors, paramedics, etc in our hospitals and health centers. Currently there is a shortage of 186,000 nurses in the US and this shortage is expected to exceed 1.2million nurses by 2014 according to the international university of nursing. This shortage of healthcare professionals is gradually becoming global and presents African countries more opportunities if African countries can adopt an open minded policy to train more health professionals for our health facilities and export.

Each year many Ghanaian and that matter African students face the harsh reality of the coming to the end of their dreams of becoming health professionals. From the Basic school level, many of our students opt to study General Science with a higher percentage of these students hoping to join the healthcare profession. Unfortunately due to the lack of space in health training institutions, many students are rejected by healthcare training institutions such as the Medical School, nursing training schools and universalities upon completing high school. It will be prudent for our government to provide more training facilities to enroll these students under a special program to train them for work here in Ghana or for export to other countries. The Government can have bilateral arrangements with countries where there are shortages of healthcare professionals to export some Ghanaian trained healthcare professionals. Apart from creating employment for the healthcare professionals the Government of Ghana as well as the institutions from which these healthcare professionals were trained can be compensated regularly from the earnings of these healthcare professionals under the bilateral arrangements.

Our graduate unemployment can also be tackle if Ghana as a country sees the opportunities that the country is presented with these shortages in healthcare profession. Graduates from our universities can be assisted to acquire the skills required for practicing in countries where there are shortages. They can be assisted to go through the licensure process in a short time as they already have been educated at the university, training schools and polytechnics.

It is time Ghana and Africa take a round approach to solving their unemployment problems. Instead of just looking at the effect of brain drain on the economy let us be fair and consider the contributions of Ghanaian health professionals who migrate abroad to our economies in foreign remittances which accounts for a good percentage of foreign inflows. So, yes we have losses in terms of availability of health professionals to take care of us but the question we all refuse to answer is what prevents us from using the gains from foreign remittances to train more healthcare providers for our health facilities and for export?

Ghana is a wonderful country and health professionals who migrate to work in foreign countries visit home regularly to contribute to the development of Ghana. The Ghana health services can undertake a special program to bring home Ghanaian health professionals at certain times of the year when these illustrious sons and daughters of the country are on leave or vacation to augment health delivery in the country. A chat with healthcare professionals working abroad on why they do not contribute towards the healthcare service in Ghana will reveal that there are no arrangements for them to contribute towards health delivery when they are in the country temporary or permanently.

As a matter of urgency, we call on all stake holders-The ministry of health, Ministry of Education, Ministry of employment and Social welfare, The ministry of Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Foreign affairs, the various healthcare associations such as Nurses and midwifery council, Ghana Medical Association, etc to consider ways Ghana can take advantage of the shortages of healthcare professionals in our country and abroad to curb the increasing unemployment rate. God bless Ghana and Africa.

That God May Grant Us Wisdom