Ghana’s Health Minister Kwabena Mintah Akandoh has said the ministry is awaiting further financial clearance to begin the second phase of its recruitment drive for 16,000 health professionals, with the next tranche covering the remaining 8,000 workers.
Speaking to Bernard Avle on Channel One TV’s The Point of View on Monday, October 19, Akandoh said the government intended to recruit health professionals into the system regularly, though he acknowledged that addressing the backlog of unemployed graduates would take time. “Very soon, we are going to begin the process to recruit another 8,000 to make up for the 16,000 health professionals,” he said .
The first batch of 8,000 recruits was selected from a pool of roughly 50,000 qualified applicants, including candidates who completed their training as far back as 2021, according to the minister . The government had previously said it would secure clearance for the second 8,000 before their recruitment to avoid repeating a damaging episode in which nurses were deployed without budgetary provision.
A Legacy of Unpaid Wages
The phased approach is a direct response to the salary arrears crisis that marred the sector in 2024. Some 13,500 nurses and midwives recruited by the previous administration began work without financial clearance, and many went months without pay, prompting protests at the Health and Finance ministries. Akandoh has said all 13,500 have now been fully paid and are receiving salaries on time .
The minister has repeatedly stressed that no health worker will be engaged without prior financial provision. Financial clearance for the first 8,000 recruits was secured earlier this year, with recruitment opening in April under a clearance that expires on December 31, 2026 . The ministry has been working through graduating classes in order, beginning with the 2021 batch of nurses and midwives .
A Backlog of Tens of Thousands
The recruitment drive is unfolding against a daunting unemployment picture. Akandoh told Parliament in July 2025 that more than 70,000 trained health professionals were seeking employment, including 48,878 nurses, 21,570 allied health professionals, 1,621 pharmacists, and over 900 medical doctors . No financial clearance had been granted for allied health professionals or pharmacists since 2019.
The minister has attributed part of the challenge to private training institutions admitting more students than the public system can absorb . Even with funding available, he has argued, recruitment must be phased to match the health system’s capacity to deploy and pay workers.
Overseas Pathways as a Complement
Alongside domestic recruitment, the government is pursuing overseas employment opportunities through the proposed Ghana Labour Exchange Programme. Akandoh disclosed that he had recently travelled to Columbus, Ohio, to sign a memorandum of understanding with the city’s mayor to facilitate employment pathways for Ghanaian health professionals in the United States .
The agreement, signed by Ghana’s Ministries of Health and Labour with the City of Columbus, builds on a sister-city relationship established between Accra and Columbus in 2015 and creates a framework for the ethical recruitment and deployment of Ghanaian nurses . Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther noted that Ghana has invested significantly in training nursing professionals who can migrate legally to enter a ready market in the Ohio city .
Akandoh has insisted that any deployment arrangement must protect the rights, welfare, and professional interests of Ghanaian health workers, and that the initiative forms part of efforts to create credible and decent employment opportunities abroad while aligning with Ghana’s migration policy and international standards .
The overseas programme is not intended to replace domestic hiring but to complement it, offering an outlet for qualified professionals while the government gradually absorbs others into the public system. For the thousands still waiting, however, the timeline remains contingent on financial clearance—a bottleneck that has repeatedly delayed recruitment in a sector desperate for staff.
