Majority Leader of Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has implored government to take another look at the salary of nurses to curb the mass exodus that has characterised the sector within the past few years.
His call comes after the Ghana Health Service (GHS) revealed that 3,688 health personnel left the country to seek greener pastures elsewhere in the past three years.
The figure, according to the GHS, comprises both professional and critical caregivers.
According to some health personnel who left the country, there is poor working conditions in Ghana, the reason they have abandoned the profession to seek better lives elsewhere.
The Ghana Health Service, as part of efforts to address the worrying concern, said it has revised and doubled study leave for unprofessional nurses as far back as 2021 and anticipates that by the middle of next year, most of these unprofessional nurses that took advantage would have qualified to fill the gap created.
But the Majority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, while debating on the Health Ministry’s 2024 budget, said the government must consider an increment in remuneration to deal with the trend.
“Mr. Speaker, I think that we should look at the remuneration [of nurses]. If we look at the compensation, it was over and above what was allocated and if people have left, the compensation should then climb up. We should do a proper audit of the nurses who have left to know the deficit and should be able to employ to replace those who have exited,” he noted.
