Dr. Opoku Ampomah, CEO of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, has expressed grave concern over the increasing number of doctors and nurses leaving Ghana for better opportunities abroad.
In an interview on Wednesday, Dr. Ampomah emphasized the urgency of addressing this issue, stating that it is having a significant impact on the hospital’s operations.
“Doctors and nurses are too eager to leave, and they are leaving,” he said.
“There are push and pull factors, so once you have a situation where better conditions are being offered elsewhere, people move to those places because they feel they can make more financially.”
The exodus, according to Dr. Ampomah, is not just about the sheer numbers but the loss of highly skilled and experienced professionals.
“If you look qualitatively at who is leaving—because if you have an ICU nurse with 15 years plus experience when they leave, it’s like you have a whole institution gone,” he explained.
He highlighted that over 1,200 Ghanaian nurses joined the UK’s nursing register in 2022, as reported by the BBC.
This trend is alarming, particularly when viewed alongside the findings of the Ghana Human Development Report, which notes that 24% of locally trained nurses and 50% of doctors have moved abroad due to poor working conditions.
To combat this trend, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital has initiated steps to retain its staff, particularly by addressing career advancement concerns.
Dr. Ampomah mentioned that the hospital has created 110 new deputy chief nursing officer positions and expanded the chief nursing officer grade to provide more opportunities for experienced nurses to progress in their careers.
“We realized that one of the reasons why our nurses were disaffected was that when they got the rank of principal nursing officer, their progression to the higher grades was constrained,” he stated.
Dr. Ampomah underscored that without immediate and strategic action, the ongoing exodus could pose a serious threat to Ghana’s healthcare system.
