Naomi Oyoe Ohene Oti: Ghanaian oncology nurse hits global headlines

Celebrating global excellence from our backyard, a Ghanaian Oncology Nurse Specialist with the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital was honoured in Dubai last week for winning the 2025 Aster Guardians Global Nursing Award.

The Award, which recognises exceptional nurses globally, who have demonstrated exemplary commitment and leadership in advancing health care, is said to have received over 100,000 nominations submitted from over 199 countries.

Our proud nurse, Mrs Naomi Oyoe Ohene Oti, working for Ghana’s premier hospital, the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, was selected out of ten finalists.

Before a large international audience at a function in Dubai, an emotionally moved Naomi, in her acceptance speech, dedicated the Award “to every nurse across Ghana, Africa and the world, who leads with resilience, compassion and courage”.

She thanked a tall list of individuals and organisations, home and abroad, including her own Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, for the opportunity to have served.  

Passion

Taking her esteemed audience through her passion for cancer care and oncology nursing, she recounted the imbalances experienced in cancer care. It is the reason for which she had spent some time to help close the gaps through education and training, and extending comfort and care to patients.

When I googled her name, expecting to see the number of local successes or mentions Naomi had chalked in view of her commitment to oncology nursing and training, both here and in other parts of Africa, there were no specifics or highlights, except for the mention that she is a recipient of multiple honours for her contributions to cancer care, research and education in Africa.  

Yet, this is a nurse who is said to have transformed patient care in the course of her over two decades of work as a nurse and contributed to training others in her area of speciality.

She is known to have pioneered specialist nurse training and championed equity in cancer outcomes.

One learns that she has been instrumental in the development of oncology nursing training programmes, in partnership with international centres like the Cross Cancer Institute in Canada.  

Through her international exposure, Nurse Naomi has brought world-class cancer education to local nurses in Ghana and significantly improved patient outcomes.  

Oncology Nursing

It is enlightening to note that under her leadership, Ghana’s oncology nursing sector has seen major developments.

She was part of the team that developed Ghana’s postgraduate oncology nursing curriculum in 2015, which has since trained over 60 oncology nurse specialists and 10 breast cancer nurses.

Yet, as this Aster Guardians Global Nursing Award event hit many headlines home and abroad, celebrating the sweet success of a nurse par excellence, the saying that a prophet is not recognised by his own came alive to me.

Are we celebrating our nurses enough?

Will the annual National Best Nurse Award be out of place?

With an impressive career path in Nursing, the winner of the 2025 prestigious Global Nursing Award is said to have gone home with a whopping prize money of $250,000.

The attractive prize money may have overwhelmed her momentarily, but what is even more overawing is her level of commitment, which she openly confessed, saying, “At the heart of my nursing career is a simple truth that nursing is not just a profession, but “a force for social justice, equity and hope”.  

As one congratulates the Aster Guardians for bringing to light a celebrated Oncology Nurse working right here in our midst, one would like to urge our Ministry of Health to set up award schemes that will continually celebrate professionals in the healthcare sector, who are doing exceptionally well, beyond their scope.

Nurses are the front care liners in every healthcare institution.

They set patients at ease as they prepare to see a doctor for their ailments. Despite the increase in nursing training institutions, we seem to be low in the ratio of nurses per 1,000 people, set at 3.6.

Coupled with this low ratio is the problem of nurse migration overseas.

According to some sources, approximately 3,000 professional nurses left Ghana in the first quarter of 2022 alone.

Surprisingly, some developed countries come after our nurses to supplement their healthcare systems.  

According to the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association information put out in 2023, between 400 and 500 nurses leave Ghana for developed countries almost every month.

The statistics are alarming, in view of the fact that we already do not have enough of them.

There are definitely hidden talents in our locally trained nurses.

Whatever is, therefore, lacking in terms of motivation should be seriously pursued to get them to stay at home to provide even more caring services.

The example of Naomi, the Oncology Nurse at Korle-Bu, is ample testimony that we have committed and knowledgeable nurses.

They are shining examples of doing extraordinary things in the healthcare process.  

There is a clarion call, therefore, for the Ministry of Health to engage more and focus attention on remuneration packages that will attract and retain more nurses in the system.

We cannot afford to lose the likes of Naomi Ohene Oti in our nursing chain to the diaspora and beyond.

Writer’s E-mail: vickywirekoandoh@yahoo.com