After spending the night at the Greater Accra Regional Health Directorate, nearly 300 enrolled nurses from the 2020 cohort found themselves stranded. This situation arose after only thirty of the nurses were hired by officials from the Regional Health Directorate, leaving the remaining nurses to fend for themselves.
These nurses, who completed their licensing exams and received their Professional Identification Number (PIN) in 2020, have been unemployed for the past four years. The earlier announcement from the Ghana Health Service about reactivating its recruitment portal had instilled hope in the nurses, allowing them to sigh with relief and remain optimistic.
On Monday, over three hundred enrolled nurses, some of whom are nursing mothers, reported to the Greater Accra Regional Health Directorate to be integrated into the health system. However, they were dismayed to learn from the human resource manager that only thirty nurses were needed to fulfil the region’s quota. These thirty nurses will be assigned to the Ada East and West districts, which currently face a shortage of healthcare personnel.
Unhappy with this development, one of the nurses shared her frustration with Stanley Nii Blewu of 3news.com, stating, “We were so pleased when the portal reopened for us to register for recruitment. Our families have suffered due to our unemployment for four years. We arrived only to be told to return home because there are only thirty positions available, and those have already been filled.”
Another distressed nurse, Veronica Anokye, expressed her disappointment, saying, “We had hoped that today would mark the end of our four-year unemployment, but things have only gotten worse.”
A senior staff member of the Greater Accra Regional Health Directorate later informed the nurses that they needed to return home, emphasizing that there was nothing they could do to exceed the region’s allotted quota. “We can’t change your situation unless we receive an order from the Ghana Health Service instructing otherwise,” he explained, “regardless of whether you stay here for the next century.”
Ultimately, the enrolled nurses left the premises feeling disappointed. Following the approval from the Ministry of Finance, the Ghana Health Service had opened its recruitment portal to hire 6,000 nurses nationwide. However, the Greater Accra Region was allocated a quota of just 122 positions. After filling the thirty slots for enrolled nurses, the remaining ninety-two positions are designated for other nursing categories, including midwives, general nurses, and nursing officers. The nurses are advocating for a review of the quota system to allow more healthcare workers, who are currently unemployed but essential, to be absorbed into the workforce.