Minister for Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, has announced plans to recruit more than 16,000 health professionals this year as part of efforts to gradually absorb thousands of trained workers into the system. He explained that the initiative is intended both to tackle unemployment among health professionals and to align recruitment with the country’s healthcare needs.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday, April 22, 2026, Mr. Akandoh revealed that Ghana faces a growing backlog of trained health workers awaiting employment. He noted that while about 74,000 professionals were unemployed in 2024, the figure had risen to nearly 100,000 by the end of 2025.
“We cannot absorb all 100,000 into the health system at once. But at the same time, there are vacancies that remain unfilled,” he said, adding that the main constraint is fiscal space, since government recruitment decisions depend on its capacity to sustain salaries.
“In every budget, you only employ what you can pay. We inherited a situation where 13,500 midwives had been engaged with no financial provision. At that point, we were torn between letting them go home or allowing them to continue to work while we looked for how to pay them,” he said.
He added that the government had to gradually place those midwives on the payroll, a process that contributed to delays and protests over unpaid salaries. Despite the challenges, the minister said the government is implementing a phased approach to employment, including external opportunities and domestic recruitment.
“So, we have an approach to ensure that all these people get employed. We have the Ghana Labour Exchange Programme to facilitate some health practitioners out of the country. The countries come with specialities they are looking for. So once we get the practicing ones out, then we create the fiscal space to employ more,” he said.
He further disclosed that the government has secured an agreement to recruit over 16,000 health professionals this year across various categories.
“It has been agreed that this year we will be employing over 16,000 health professionals. And we are not only looking at nurses and midwives alone. We are looking at pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, allied health professionals, and physician assistants,” he said.
Source: William Narh
