Thursday, 12th March, 2026
Hon Thomas Winsum Anabah
Garu
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to make a Statement on closing the physician gap in Ghana, global perspectives and strategic options.
Mr Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to address this House on a matter of urgent national importance: the shortage of health professionals, particularly medical doctors. Across Ghana, many health centres and district hospitals remain critically understaffed. While infrastructure and equipment are vital to a functional health system, the absence of adequate skilled personnel continues to undermine access to quality healthcare This workforce gap is not merely a structural concern but a direct threat to equitable and effective healthcare delivery in every constituency of our dear nation Mr Speaker, nurses who form the backbone of our health system, are still not enough to meet demand. Each year, we train thousands, yet many remain unemployed because of fiscal constraints, while others leave the country in search of better conditions.
Meanwhile, in underserved areas, a few exhausted staff struggle to keep facilities running Mr Speaker, the situation is even more serious when it comes to medical doctors. Ghana’s physician-topopulation ratio currently stands at 2.66 doctors per 10,000 people. The World Health Organization (WTO) recommends at least 10 doctors per 10,000 people. This means that 1 doctor is to 1,000 people, The global average is 17.2 to 10,000 people. This clearly shows how far we must go.
Mr Speaker, according to the Ghana Medical and Dental Council, we have about 12,886 registered medical doctors. To meet the WHO benchmark for a population of about 32 million, Ghana would need roughly 32,000 doctors. That leaves us with a deficit of nearly 19,000 physicians Mr Speaker, even if we continue to train about 900 to 1,000 doctors each year, and assume we retain all of them, it would take close to 20 years to close this gap. About 35 per cent of locally trained doctors emigrate annually, seeking better remuneration, working conditions, and professional growth. We are therefore losing a significant portion of the very workforce we invest in training.
Mr Speaker, the imbalance between urban and rural areas worsens the crisis. Some urban facilities have relatively adequate staffing, but many rural districts, including Garu, operate with only one or two doctors serving populations of over 40,000 people. This is not simply inconvenient. It places lives at risk, for the people and one or two doctors who works there.
Mr Speaker. we must also consider the wellbeing of our current workforce. The 2024 performance report of the Medical and Dental Council indicate that nine per cent of doctors cited in professional misconduct cases were found to be dealing with some form of depression. This suggests that beyond the numbers, there is a strain on morale and mental health within the profession.
Mr Speaker, this challenge is serious, but it is not unique to Ghana. Other countries have faced similar shortages and taken bold steps to respond. There are useful lessons we can adopt. Mr Speaker, some countries have reformed their licensing and examination systems.
In Canada, the Medical Council simplified the licensing process for International Medical Graduates by eliminating one of its qualifying exams. Australia has exempted doctors trained in certain comparable systems from additional clinical exams. Israel has introduced examination waivers for experienced foreign-trained doctors, provided they undergo structural clinical integration. These reforms have reduced unnecessary barriers while maintaining standards. Ghana can review its own licensure and credentialing recognition frameworks.
We should make it easier for Ghanaian doctors abroad to return and practise and for qualified trained doctors to contribute without compromising patient safety. Singapore recently expanded its list of recognised foreign medical degree programmes from 112 to 120 institutions to help address doctor shortage and meet growing health demands. Ghana could consider a similar policy to ease our physician gap while we continue to strengthen local training capacity.
Mr Speaker, secondly, countries such as Canada and Australia have developed practical ready assessment programmes. These allow experienced doctors to undergo supervised clinical practice leading to full licensure. Instead of repeating long training pathways, they are assessed in real practical settings. Israel has similarly replaced lengthy internship requirements for some foreign-trained doctors with structured integration schemes. Today, international medical graduates make up to a significant share of their physician workforce. Ghana can explore similar supervised fast-track pathways to get doctors come to Ghana.
Mr Speaker, thirdly, several countries align immigration policies with health workforce needs. They provide expedited visa processing, relocation support, and incentive for doctors who agree to work in underserved areas. We can design targets, recruitment strategies, and prioritise deprived districts. Mr Speaker, Malaysia addressed its health workforce shortages by reforming medical education, shifting from outcome-based to competitive-based medical education. The country emphasised clinical competence and introduced flexible postgraduate pathways while upholding national standards, thereby expanding training capabilities and capacities without compromising quality.
Mr Speaker, based on these lessons, I propose a multi-pronged national strategy: one, adopting competencybased medical education in all medical training institutions; two, introduce flexible parallel postgraduate training pathways to expand specialist training; three, reform licensure and credential recognition to attract foreign-trained Ghanaian doctors and qualified international medical graduates; four, align immigration and health policies to recruit doctors for underserved areas; and five, invest in the faculty development, infrastructure and regulate capacity to retain qualified doctors.
Mr Speaker, at the same time, we must improve working conditions, ensure fair, timely compensation, provide rural incentives, and strengthen mental health support for health professionals who work in Ghana. Expanding the number without adding welfare will not solve the problem.
Mr Speaker, achieving Universal Health Coverage by 2030 depends on the strength of our human resource for health. No health system can function without the adequate number of motivated and well-trained doctors and nurses. Let us all, therefore, approach this issue with the urgency it deserves. The people of Garu, Gomoa, Ga Mashie and every community in Ghana deserve accessible and quality health care so that we can achieve the 2030 Universal Health Coverage as we all seek to.
Mr Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to read this Statement.
Hon Samuel Abdulai Jinapor
Damongo
Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the very important and insightful Statement made by my Hon Friend, Dr Thomas Winsum Anabah, the MP for Garu.
Mr Speaker, I think the maker of the Statement ought to be commended for tabling such an important matter on the Floor of Parliament. He underscores the importance of health care, and indeed, the common statement is that a healthy nation is a wealthy nation, and across the world, as he pointed out and referred to Malaysia and other parts of the world where they have been very successful at constructing a robust public health system which supports their population and which makes their population productive and effective.
Mr Speaker, some of the recommendations he made are most welcome and are to be worked on. There are one or two other contributions I believe will further enrich the recommendations the maker of the Statement put forward. He talks about physicians and went into great detail in dissecting the sector into the segment of medical doctors, nurses, the shortfall we have, the numbers we need, the measures we ought to put in place to attract them, to retain them, and to avoid a situation where our health care professionals are posted to the right places of our country for them to be able to meet the health care needs of our compatriots.
Mr Speaker, take, for example, the nursing field. Today, statistics tell us that as at October 2025, there are 13,500 nurses who have not been posted; 13,500 nurses who have not been posted. They have been trained. The country has spent money on training them. They are equipped, willing to work, and yet they have not been posted as of October 2025. As we speak, we do not have budgetary provision for recruiting these health care workers who have been trained and are willing to work but as we speak today, are literally languishing in their homes and do not have postings.
I think we need to pay attention to that and prioritise the recruitment of nurses across our country in order to augment the effectiveness of the health care system of our country. Mr Speaker, again, the Upper West Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service had cause to indicate that as of December 2025, 80 per cent of doctors were posted to the Upper West Region of our country did not report to duty. That is a major cause for concern.
Indeed, this is not peculiar to the Upper West Region. In my own home region, the Savannah Region, we have similar situations where doctors are posted and they do not report to duty. We need to interrogate the reasons for this. It certainly will be a question of conditions of service and the nature of the environment they are posted to. All of these will have to be looked at.
Mr Speaker, again, as we speak today, nurses in the public service of our country who have been recruited, have not been paid salary for 14 months. If we are going to build a robust public health system for our country, these are matters we have to prioritise where when nurses are recruited, they are paid. Not only do we have 13,500 nurses who have been trained, equipped, ready and willing to work, not being recruited, but even those who have been recruited, 14,000 of them, a good number of them, are working as we speak, and yet for 14 months they have not been paid. Mr Speaker, let me conclude by saying that there is really a part of the public health system of our country which I believe the authorities ought to pay attention to.
Mr Speaker, by that I refer to Agenda 111 and it is arguably the most revolutionary, the most audacious, the most expansive and the most transformative intervention in the public health system of our country since independence. What is Agenda 111? — Mr Speaker, I did not know we were being timed.
Hon Mark Kurt Nawaane
Nabdam
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity. Before I give my submission, I want to correct one fact.
The previous speaker said that 13,500 nurses are unemployed. I think that is factually wrong. The 13,500 nurses were employed before the National Democratic Congress (NDC) came to power and they were not paid. As we speak now, they are being paid. So, that is not correct. [Interruption] Yes, the 13,500 nurses are those who have been paid.
Mr Speaker, the issue of inadequate doctors or a lack of enough doctors is something that, as a nation, we need to take radical steps to see to what extent we can correct it. As we speak now, on the Medical and Dental Council Register, we have about 13,000 doctors. But from the Statement, we would realise that we need about 32,000 doctors. That is almost about 300 per cent of that number. And apart from that, there is what we call distribution.
Distribution is skewed towards the big towns. Accra and Kumasi alone take about 70 per cent of those few doctors. The remaining doctors are now supposed to go to the smaller towns. So, we have a situation where the doctor-to-patient ratio in Accra is about 1 to 1,200. But when we take the Oti Region for example, the ratio stands at 1 to 22,000, which is not good for a nation such as Ghana. Now, what can we do about it? Even as we speak, we have doctors who have not been employed. But what can we do about it? Currently, we need to increase the production of doctors. There are so many medical faculties that are springing up and the problem is payment.
So, what I recommend to the Government is that instead of sponsoring people outside to go and do medicine, they should invest that amount of money to give scholarships to students to study those courses in Ghana here. A case is that of Entrance University. Entrance University has a medical degree course, but the number of students they admit is just between 10 and 20 students and that is too small. If the Government can give scholarships to very brilliant students to choose these schools and allow more medical schools to be opened, we can do it. It is something that we can do and this will increase the number of doctors. The other problem is that, as a nation, we should look at the complementary efforts of the private sector.
As we speak, there are a lot of job opportunities in the private sector. There are about 3,000 private hospitals in the country, which can employ more people. But we are to some extent, leaving them aside. This is unemployment that we are talking about. If we look at the situation very well, and if they could go to—
Hon Alhassan Tampuli Sulemana
Gushegu
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker, I rise to contribute to the Statement that has been ably made by Hon Dr Thomas Anabah. The Statement was very well delivered and absolutely very well researched. If I look at the references, it tells me that he did quite good research.
Mr Speaker, this situation that we are complaining about is not a problem of today. It has been with us for God knows how long. This matter, I believe, if we come back next year, God willing, we shall be talking about it again and we shall be doing so for the next 10 years.
Mr Speaker, we should be talking about solutions at this stage and not rehashing the problems that all of us know. The issue about the number of medical professionals who have not been hired and are still waiting at home to be employed is even more than 50,000. We are not talking about only nurses, but we are talking about other medical professionals and that is above 50,000. Some of them are sitting at home looking for an opportunity to serve their nation and to serve us.
Mr Speaker, that is where the point about Agenda 111 comes to bear. One of the most revolutionary initiatives since independence is the Agenda 111 initiative. Never has there been any audacious move to do—in fact, it is even Agenda 112. At the time that we were doing Agenda 111, we had not even considered Karaga.
In due course, Karaga was added, so it became 112. But Mr Speaker, sadly, when we move around the sites of these Agenda 111 facilities, we would find out that some of them are already in ruin. The facilities which are 60 per cent, 70 per cent, 40 per cent and different stages of completion have been abandoned. How do we expand healthcare facilities and abandon some of these construction sites?
Mr Speaker, one of the most difficult situations for the health sector is clearance from the Ministry of Finance. That is the elephant in the room and we must say it loudly. The Minister for Finance has to give them clearance for them to be able to recruit. Na sika no wͻhe?
Mr Speaker, so we need to find ways to deal with this situation and the solution is not far from us. The solution is right in front of us. We can use the 1- 3-3 formula, the 24-Hour Economy formula. The nurses and other health professionals who are at home will come for six hours and others will come for another six hours and then we will be giving meaning to the 24-Hour Economy.
So, Mr Speaker, let us bring to bear the 1-3-3 formula. The youth of Ghana need work. They are prepared; they are schooled and they need work. Let us give them the opportunity.
Mr Speaker, let us not come here next year to lament and lament. The solution is there; expand the health infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance should give financial clearance, all these people will be working and we will not come back here to talk about the same situation. Mr Speaker, I thank you very much.
Hon Abdul-Rashid Hassan Pelpuo
Wa Central
Mr Speaker, I want to thank the maker of this Statement for this very thoughtful Statement he has made, because health is a critical issue and affects everybody.
Where health facilities exist and the practitioners are not available, especially nurses and doctors, is a serious concern that we will all have to express. I do admit that this is a long-lasting issue. It was not just something we woke up to meet. It has been there for a while. There must be a national commitment to solve the problem, a policy direction from government to government that should tackle the issue, provide the needed response to the need for nurses, engagement of doctors, and to the effect that we have a total approach to our health needs.
Mr Speaker, the challenge, which was also mentioned by Hon Member for Damongo, Mr Samuel Jinapor, is that we have the challenge of nurses not being employed, doctors not being employed adequately, but we also have a challenge of those employed who refuse to work. I have always cited the example that years ago, the colonial masters travelled all the way from the United Kingdom to Ghana. They were posted to places as far as the Tumu and beyond, and to everywhere else in Ghana. They travelled there and they worked. Today, they post people to Wa—Seventeen nurses were posted to Wa last year, and they refused to go.
Meanwhile, there is a Hippocratic Oath, which they have admitted before they were pronounced doctors, to abide by and to make manifest in their life as professionals. So, Mr Speaker, while we are urging that this policy be attended to—I listened to the speaker talk about the reason being that physical policy approach does not support engagement of everybody we have employed. I do admit to that. But it is important also for those who are available to take a decision and work wherever they are posted. A place like Wa, it is surprising when they refuse to go there. There are three universities there. There are very good secondary schools there. There are excellent basic schools there. Life there is good, food is cheap, yet they refuse to go. What explanations can they give to the people of Ghana?
Mr Speaker, I have heard a lot of talk about Agenda 111. I listened to Hon Tampuli, when he repeated the point the Hon Member for Damongo was making on the Agenda 111. Mr Speaker, it has to be understood very clearly. The issue is not about the number of health posts in Ghana. In fact, we have built several of them all over the country. That is the reason why the people are there, and we are urging that they should be employed. We have lots of community health centres all throughout the country, built by the National Democratic Congress (NDC). We did not even mention the concepts, the Community Health Planning Services (CHPS) compounds. They are all over.
The issue is not about the availability that we are talking about or that they are talking about. The issue is about the availability of the doctors and our commitment to pay them and get them employed. We are saying that within the period we are in, we have demonstrated we can do that. There was a leftover of about 12,000 workers who were not paid, though employed. As soon as we came, we started paying them. So, I was surprised when Hon Jinapor said they are not being paid. There was an approval of the payment by the Minister for Finance, and then along the line, payments are being made. Mr Speaker, I also think that this issue must not be a political issue. We need to commit ourselves to it. I believe that this Statement will be an awakening call for us to have proper attention to it and deal with it comprehensively.
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Hon Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah
Manhyia South
Mr Speaker, I commend the maker of the Statement. Historically, our problem as a nation was brain drain in the health sector.
Today, we are not complaining of brain drain. We are rather complaining of not being able to hire more doctors, more physicians, more nurses, and more healthcare professionals. Mr Speaker, the question is why? At this point, we may want to take a historical journey as to how governments have solved some of the problems we have faced in our health sector.
Mr Speaker, not long ago, I stated that historically, our problem was brain drain. When President Kufuor took office in the year 2001, these are some of the interventions he introduced to solve some of the problems we had in the sector, the brain drain in the health sector. He introduced extra duty allowance to help our doctors earn more money. He gave them concessions in respect of import duty at the port. He also introduced the National Health Insurance Scheme to help generate more revenue in the sector to take care of expenditure in the sector, with the ripple effect of having more money in the pockets of our health sector professionals to care for brain drain.
Mr Speaker, today, we have been given a mandate of 88 Members of Parliament. About 57 per cent of Ghanaians voted for the NDC to make very bold decisions. If there is a problem, this is not the time for lamentation. It is the time for solutions. So fix it. Fix the problems and not come here to lament. The Statements are riddled with lamentations.
Mr Speaker, they inherited Agenda 111. Continue with it. It was a brilliant initiative by the Nana Akufo-Addo’s administration, Nana Addo Dankwa – Dr Bawumia administration. The implementation was with the taxpayers’ money. Let us give value and meaning to the taxpayers’ money. Fix it so that our physicians will have a place to work. Fix it.
Mr Speaker, in this year’s Budget, an amount of GH₵100 million was allocated to the Agenda 111 programme while they allocated GH₵200 million for sanitary pads. The problem is a matter of your policy choices. It is not a country that is helpless. It is a problem of wrong priorities of the NDC Government. They can fix it with their Budget, instead of reading Statements on the floor of Parliament and lamenting. The book of lamentations has already been written. The Bible does not expect the addition of any book of lamentations by the NDC Government. If there is a problem, they should fix it. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.
Hon Sebastian Ngmenenso Sandaare
Daffiama/Bussie/Issa
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity. I thank the maker of the Statement for this very important national issue on how we have inequitable distribution of our health workers, nurses and doctors and other health workers.
Mr Speaker, this is one of the issues that we need to discuss without being partisan. It is an issue that, as a House, we have to come together and find solutions to. The problems of health workers did not start today. It has been there over the years. I remember when I started as a medical officer, the issue of doctors not accepting posting and not being motivated was there. It has been with us as an issue; therefore, we must come together to discuss the solutions.
In this country, the issue is not about trainings or postings. It is, just like the maker of this Statement said, about ensuring equitable distribution of our doctors, nurses and other health workers. One of the Hon Members who contributed to the Statement gave evidence of where in Accra the doctorto-population ratio is about 1 is to 1,000. We get to a region like Oti Region or my region; I have a doctor-to-patient ratio being 1 is to 22,000. So, the question we ask is, why? Why is it that doctors would want to remain in Accra and would not want to go to Oti or go to the Upper West Region or any other rural region? It has to do with motivation.
Because the doctors who work in the cities make extra income and have other opportunities. So, what we need to do and discuss is to ensure that we put incentives in place, so that the doctor posted to the Upper West Region or posted to Oti Region would have equal opportunities or fair opportunities like the one working in Accra. The doctors that were posted to Upper West Region, Upper East Region who refused to go did so because they look at it and they do not have motivational packages over there. Same applies to the nurses and other health workers.
Sometimes, even before they are posted, they are already working in private health facilities. So, if a doctor already, after completing, is working in a private facility in Accra, and we post him to Upper West or Upper East, he compares working in that private facility and going to the rural area and what is in there for him? So, we have to look at the distribution, the motivation, and also addressing the environmental factors. Are there the needed equipment where the doctor or nurse is posted? Is the facility enabling so that this doctor or nurse can stay and work? That is where all of us have responsibilities. As Members of Parliament, we can look at what can we do in our individual capacity to ensure that a doctor or a nurse is comfortable in our district.
Mr Speaker, to conclude, the issue is not about Agenda 111. So, we should not introduce any Agenda 111 in this national issue. It is not about the health facilities. I am saying that the issue is not about the number of hospitals that are in the country. It is about the fact that the facilities even exist, but the people are not accepting posting to these areas. They brought their Agenda 111, a populist issue, that created problems for them, so anything we want to discuss here, even if it has nothing to do with Agenda 111, they bring Agenda 111 into it.
Mr Speaker, Government is enabling measures to ensure that our health workers accept posting to these areas. By that I mean, Government is retooling—
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