Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare has said conditions are currently unfavourable for all public sector workers in the country, and government is doing its part to ensure things become better for all.
Like health workers, the President’s Advisor on health says teachers and other professionals are all facing challenges which the Akufo-Addo administration, though with just six months left in office, is doing what it can to make things better.
His comments come on the back of the recent brain drain which is seeing a lot of health workers traveling outside the country to find greener pastures.
When quizzed on what the government is doing about the number of health workers leaving the country, Dr. Nsiah-Asare noted that although measures are in place to tackle the issue at the health sector, they are seeking to resolve the challenges of workers holistically.
When told on Hot Issues on TV3 Sunday, June 09, 2024, that many nurses are leaving the country because “right now, the conditions are poor”, he responded “yes, for everybody in this country, for teachers and for any other person. So what you are doing, you have to also balance it. So that’s what government wants to do.”
Speaking on the push factors that make nurses leave the country, he said “I know the push factors. If a young person knows that I’m being posted here, as we speak now, even though people are leaving the country, we are not maybe employing everybody. There are some places where we have very shortage of critical healthcare professionals. Because if you want me to go to some rural community and I go and there’s no accommodation, it becomes difficult for me to stay there.”
He disclosed that government is going to introduce a rural incentive to curb that.
“So we have to provide that. And to me, that is where the rural incentive is coming. That’s what government now is going to do. And you can do this thing with the private sector,” he stated.
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