The Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) has expressed worry about the potential negative impacts on the country's healthcare system of the bilateral agreement between the governments of Ghana and Britain to send qualified Ghanaian nurses to the United Kingdom.

The Association claims that even while the agreement is admirable, if it were to fully implement, there may be a shortage of properly educated nurses.

Perpetual Ofori Ampofo, the president of the GRNMA, said in an interview with Citi News that there are now just a few professionally educated nurses in the system, therefore the government must train more nurses to prevent having a detrimental influence on the bilateral agreement.

“You realised that we have a lot more of the certificate holders as against a lower number in terms of the diploma holders and degree holders. So we are training them in high numbers, meanwhile, there are professional members who are not the best, and these are the same people taking care of Ghanaians, so we need to change and also look at building the infrastructure of GRNMA, and helping build the caucus, so that they will be in a better position to train more specialist nurses and midwives, to boost the human resources capacity of the nation.”

“At that point, you will definitely have adequate numbers to work in Ghana and at the same time migrate elsewhere to work. But in the current circumstances, although we cannot abrogate what we have done with the UK, it’s going to come back and hit us,” the President of GRNMA said.

The Ghanaian government and the British government are about to reach a bilateral deal to transfer nurses training to the UK in exchange for financial benefits.

This was revealed by Health Minister Kwaku Agyemang Manu on Monday, December 5, during the discussion of the 2023 Budget on the House Floor.

“We are engaging with the government of the United Kingdom, and we are just about to sign a memorandum of agreement after cabinet approval to begin to send nurses for training and work there and come back home after three years.

“Ghana is going to benefit from the little money that the UK government will pass on. For every single nurse that goes away, when we finish the agreement, it is likely we will get over 1000 pounds to come and support the health system in Ghana. ”