Former spokesperson for the Ghana Nurse-Midwife Trainees' Association (GNMTA), Akugri Gadafi-Avokbil, has alleged that as part of the consensus agreement between the Ghana government and the UK, Ghana has cancelled all clearance guaranteeing nurses to travel outside the country to work.

According to him, the call to export nurses remains a priority to the nation and the nursing fraternity, but negotiations should be properly carried out to benefit the nursing association.

He also expressed joy over the yet to be implemented agreement which he believes will curb the rate of unemployed nurses in the country.

“When I was the PRO for the nursing trainees’ association in September 2017, we met the President and proposed this initiative of exporting nurses to support countries like the UK; so it is not a new thing to some of us, it is a very good initiative which will help curb the nursing unemployment in the country because 2019, 2020, and 2021 nursing trainees are all sitting at home without being posted.

“...The government has now revoked the nurses’ clearance to travel and work as a result of the agreement, thus negotiations should be properly conducted to benefit the nurses,” he said in a phone conversation with GhanaWeb.

Ghana is about signing a Nurse-for-Cash agreement with the government of the United Kingdom. Each nurse Ghana sends to the UK, once the deal is done, is likely to fetch the West African country £1,000, Health Minister Kweku Agyeman-Manu announced on the floor of parliament on Monday, December 5, 2022 during the debate of the 2023 budget.

Already, Ghanaian nurses are being sent to Barbados per an earlier agreement signed between the two countries.

“Mr Speaker, as you are aware, we’ve started sending our nurses outside on a bilateral basis and the agreement we signed with Barbados has sent the second cohort of nurses to Barbados. Mr Speaker, why would they come for both? Now, in Barbados, what we hear is the fact that patients are requesting Ghanaian nurses to be on their bedside and I think that is a plus for us,” Mr Agyeman-Manu said.

AM/IA