The Ministry of Health is sounding the alarm over the mounting backlog of unemployed health professionals in Ghana, pointing to unregulated enrolment by private health training institutions as a key contributor.
The Ministry’s spokesperson, Tony Goodman, speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, revealed that nearly 100,000 trained health workers remain unemployed—many for up to five years—due to a mismatch between national health sector demands and the output from private schools.
His remarks follow growing pressure on the Ministry of Finance to grant financial clearance for over 2,000 unposted Environmental Health Officer graduates who completed training as far back as 2021. Parliament’s Committee on Sanitation and Water Resources recently urged the immediate deployment of these professionals to address the country’s worsening sanitation crisis.
Goodman noted that while the Ministry of Health conducts training aligned with specific regional and national staffing needs, most private institutions operate purely on market demand, admitting large student numbers without regard for employment absorption capacity.
“They run their institutions like businesses—admitting large numbers to generate income—then expect the government to absorb all graduates into the public health system,” he said.
He further warned that it would be unsustainable and “suicidal” to attempt recruiting all unemployed professionals in a single year, given the size of the backlog and fiscal constraints.
Health experts and civil society groups have called for a regulatory overhaul of private training institutions, emphasizing the need for coordinated planning between educational bodies and the Ministry of Health to prevent further deepening of the health sector’s unemployment crisis.
Meanwhile, affected graduates continue to decry the long wait for employment despite the country’s pressing health and sanitation needs.
