President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has urged nurses and midwives to accept postings to rural and deprived areas where their services are most needed.
He said the refusal of some healthcare professionals to accept postings to some parts of the country was not helpful to efforts at making quality healthcare services accessible to all Ghanaians.
The President made the call on Friday at a grand durbar to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the School of Nursing and Midwifery, of the College of Health Sciences of the University of Ghana, Legon.
The anniversary is being celebrated under the theme: “Resilience in Developing Nursing and Midwifery Workforce: Embracing Technology and Promoting Excellence.”
Underlining the need for the equitable distribution of healthcare professionals across the country, President Akufo-Addo thought it was unfair for health workers to be concentrated in cities and urban areas to the detriment of people in rural settings.
He asked nurses and midwives to emulate their forebearers who accepted work in any part of the country even when the national infrastructure was not the best and without the incentive packages being offered presently by the government.
“Our schools of Nursing and Midwifery have got a good reputation and have been training good nurses and midwives who easily find work in all parts of the world.
“But the nurse-population ratio in our country remains unsatisfactory after 66 years of our nation. We currently do not have the number of healthcare professionals with the right mix of skills and expertise in some of our regions, districts, and deprived communities, especially in the newly created regions and districts.
“Nurses refusing postings is particularly distressing. I want to use this platform to encourage all health practitioners to follow the worthy example of your great forebearers who readily accepted postings in their early years when the national infrastructure was even more harrowing than it is.
“Therefore, I am appealing to you as passionately as I can to accept postings to all regions and district hospitals where your services are most needed,” he said.