ABOUT 3,000 nurses left Ghana in search of greener pastures abroad during the first quarter of 2022.
Most of these nurses travelled to the United Kingdom (UK), where they believe better remuneration that befits their hard work and huge sacrifices would be paid to them.
Interestingly, more nurses in the country are also trying their best to leave to the UK and practice, where they would be paid fat salaries to give them a secured future.
Ebenezer Acquah, the Ashanti Regional Assistant Secretary, Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association, disclosed this on Akoma FM.
According to him, the brain drain has hit the nursing sector mainly because the nurses believe that they were being underpaid therefore, it was necessary for them to leave.
“Just during the first quarter, about 3,000 nurses, including practising nurses, left the shores of the country to seek greener pastures abroad,” Acquah disclosed.
He said “most of them headed straight to the UK, where they believe their welfare and better future would be ensured. They only write an examination and leave to UK.”
According to him, the salary paid to a practising nurse for one-month in the UK is equal to the pay that a nurse also practising in Ghana would manage to get in two years.
Acquah, who was not happy at the rate at which nurses were leaving the country, over poor remuneration, urged the authorities concerned to intervene to help avoid disaster.
“Currently, even a country like Barbados is taking Specialist Nurses from Ghana because of better conditions of service there. This is not good for the country,” he said.
He continued that Ghanaian nurses meet international standards, warning that “if care is not taken, the country would lose all its trained nurses to brain drain soonest.”
FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi