Ghana’s policy to export health professionals abroad, particularly to the United Kingdom and Barbados, has stirred deep national unease. At first glance, it may seem like an innovative way to earn foreign exchange.
But beneath the glossy rhetoric lies a disturbing truth a government willing to trade away its healers while its own citizens languish in overcrowded hospitals, battling diseases with dwindling staff and scarce medical supplies.
Across Ghana, the signs of a failing health system are everywhere. Expectant mothers in rural districts travel miles to deliver in under-resourced facilities. Nurses work exhausting shifts without adequate tools or motivation. Patients lie on hospital floors because beds are full, while others die waiting to be attended to. Yet, rather than fixing these systemic problems, our leaders have chosen to monetize them, turning national frustration into foreign labour contracts.
The Ghana Health Service estimates that over 4,000 nurses and midwives have already left the country in the past two years. The doctor-to-patient ratio still falls far below the World Health Organisation’s standard, with some districts having just one doctor for every 10,000 people. These are not mere numbers; they represent mothers, children and families left without timely care. In this crisis, exporting even more professionals is not policy innovation it is moral neglect.
Supporters of the policy argue that bilateral agreements will generate income and create opportunities abroad, drawing inspiration from the Philippines’ nurse export model. But Ghana is not the Philippines. We are a country still struggling to provide basic healthcare, still losing lives to preventable diseases, and still unable to fully equip our hospitals. What we need are reforms that retain our skilled workforce not strategies that drain it further.
The root of the problem lies not in the migration of health professionals but in the leadership vacuum that drives them away. How can a nurse stay in a system that delays her salary for months? How can a young doctor remain in a district hospital with no basic diagnostic equipment, no housing and no professional support? Leadership has failed to make healthcare work and now, that same leadership seeks to profit from its own failure.
There is also a deeper moral and national question. What does it say about our priorities when we can export nurses but cannot ensure clean water in our clinics? When we can negotiate foreign labour deals but not improve rural health infrastructure? When the lives of Ghanaians become less urgent than remittances?
If the government insists on pursuing this policy, transparency and accountability must be non-negotiable. The public deserves to know how much Ghana earns from these bilateral agreements, how those funds are reinvested, and what measures exist to replace the departing workforce. Destination countries must also be held to fair commitments, including investments in training institutions, equipment and technology transfer to strengthen Ghana’s health system.
But beyond agreements and figures, this debate should jolt national conscience. No nation develops by outsourcing its best minds while its citizens die from avoidable illnesses. Ghana needs a leadership that views health not as an economic export, but as a moral responsibility.
The export of nurses and doctors should not be celebrated as progress. It should be seen for what it is, a painful indictment of leadership failure and misplaced priorities. Until we build a health system that inspires our own professionals to stay, Ghana will continue to heal others while bleeding at home.
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