Govt urged to improve working conditions of health professionals to reverse situation 

The Board Chairman for Oxygen Africa Health Forum Apostle Dr. Nii Teiko Tagoe has urged the government to improve the conditions of health practitioners to minimise migration to other countries in search of greener pastures.

This, he said will enable health professionals to stay and work in Ghana. "Providing incentives for health professionals, especially for those working in rural and under-served areas, and re-engineering the training and regulation of doctors to include extensive exposure to rural and under-served areas will help improve the situation,” he said.

Apostle Dr. Nii Tieko Tagoe made this observation at the launch of Oxygen Africa Health Forum to mark "World Health Day" in Accra on Thursday, April 13, 2023.

The Oxygen Health Forum is a biennial platform that seeks to bring key stakeholders in the healthcare sector in Africa and global stakeholders to discuss and share ideas about key issues affecting the health sector whilst providing innovative ideas on improving these problems.

This forum is an initiative of the Oxygen Health tech powered by Corporate Health Ghana Limited to help foster collaboration and partnership for better health care.

Speaking on Oxygen Health Tech, He said it is a digital health marketplace where one can click on multiple health services or dialling a short code * 800*222# to have access to health care services.

Dr. Baffour Awuah - Special Advisor to the Minister of Health on Human Resource speaking on behalf of the Health Minister Hon Kwaku Agyemang Manu said over the years successive governments have done extremely well to improve the working conditions of health practitioners in the country.

Highlighting on the issue of migration, he stated that "nobody can stop migration in the world, since it is not unique to Ghana even if conditions are good something will compel somebody to move out of the country. Some people travel to experience the naturalization of another country. Migration is something that nobody can solve in this world. Challenges will always be there, and governments are always working to put measures in place. Continuous improvement is the way to go".

"The red alert is not entirely true, as far back as 4, or 5 years ago, Ghana has trained enough nursing professionals, what I'm told is, Ghana has not updated some of its courses with WHO, that is why our name is in there. As I said more than 50,000 qualified nurses that we have, if we are employing, we can not employ all of them. So this migration is also a way of stabilizing the system because if people are unemployed is also a threat to security," he explained.

At the end of the forum, about 10 devoted and hard-working health practitioners received citations and awards for their tremendous work done towards humanity.