MoH set to recruit 6,000 volunteers for Free Primary Health Care
The Ministry of Health (MoH) has initiated plans to recruit more than 6,000 volunteer health professionals, particularly Nurse Assistant Preventive (NAP) personnel, to support the implementation of the government’s Free Primary Healthcare (FPHC) Initiative.
The ministry explained that the move was part of efforts to strengthen healthcare delivery and provide temporary financial support for prospective health professionals who completed school from 2022 to date.
The Director of Human Resource for Health Development at the MoH, Frederick Mensah Acheampong, who made this known at a press conference in Accra yesterday to give updates on the recent recruitment process on its portal, said the recruits would be offered stipend and given the opportunity to sharpen and maintain their professional skills.
He said the initiative was also aimed at boosting healthcare services at the primary level, particularly in underserved communities, where access to health professionals remained a challenge.
He said the recruitment process was designed to address critical staffing gaps in the health sector and to ensure transparency and fairness in allocations across the country.
He said the MoH received financial clearance in April, this year, to recruit approximately 8,000 health workers amid growing concerns over the backlog of more than 105,000 unemployed health professionals.
He acknowledged the anxiety surrounding the recruitment exercise and stressed that allocations were based on human resource requirements submitted by agencies under the ministry for the purpose of meeting the free primary healthcare staffing need.
Portal
Providing statistics on the portal, the ministry said about 53,440 health professionals successfully verified their records during a one-week verification exercise on the portal.
The verified records comprised 30,226 allied health professionals from the 2019 to 2024 batches, 16,860 nurses and midwives for the 2021 batch, 4,631 physician assistants from 2018 to 2024, 2,975 pharmacists and 1,778 pharmacy technicians from 2019 to 2024, and five certified registered anaesthetists.
In addition, he said 29,893 accounts were successfully created on the platform, although 2,636 applicants were unable to complete their profiles.
Out of the total accounts created, registered general nurses constituted the highest number with 4,158, followed by 3,503 for midwives and 2,724 for NAP applicants.
He said nurse assistant clinical applicants accounted for 1,329 active accounts, while registered public health nurses recorded 960 active accounts.
Others were nurse officers; 804, medical laboratory sciences; 2,058, medical laboratory technicians; 1,546, physician assistants; 901, pharmacy technicians, 720, and nutritionists, 1,217.
Traffic
Mr Acheampong said the Greater Accra and Eastern regions recorded the highest application rates during the first five minutes of the exercise, submitting a total of 217 applications, followed by Ashanti and Bono regions with 153 applications, and the Central and Western regions, 123 applications each.
He indicated that for the first time, West Mamprusi, a district in the northern part of the country, recorded the highest number of successful applications of over 90.
He said the ministry considered the outcome as encouraging since northern districts had historically faced challenges in attracting and retaining health professionals.
However, he said there were 87 slots available on the portal, mainly for Registered Public Health Nurses and mental health nurses with five CRAs scattered within the northern districts.
He said the ministry was working closely with the Ghana Health Service and the Christian Health Association of Ghana to address the staffing gaps while ensuring an equitable distribution of health workers nationwide.
Successful applications
Mr Acheampong said out of the 6,500 vacancies allocated to nurses and midwives, a total of 6,245 successful applications had been submitted through the ministry’s recruitment portal.
He said the remaining vacancies had been reserved for critical service areas within teaching hospitals and specialised institutions, including the country’s psychiatric hospitals.
For the allied health professionals, he said 771 successful applications had been submitted out of the 900 available slots, with the remaining vacancies earmarked for specialised health institutions and teaching hospitals where staffing needs remained critical.
On pharmacy recruitment, he said 235 pharmacy professionals and pharmacy technicians had successfully submitted applications out of the 250 vacancies available.
“The remaining positions are being reserved for some teaching hospitals and specialised institutions such as the Food and Drugs Authority and the Pharmacy Council,” he said.
Mr Acheampong added that vacancies for physician assistants had been exhausted, with five vacancies remaining for Certified Registered Anaesthetists (CRAs).
Mop-up exercise
He said the portal would be reopened in the coming weeks for a mop-up exercise to fill the remaining vacancies.
He said the ministry would also start the recruitment process for medical officers in the coming weeks to fill vacancies across the country, especially in rural and deprived areas.
He indicated that the ministry was expecting financial clearance before the end of the year, giving the assurance that it would reopen the portal as soon as additional financial clearance was granted.
