The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has rejected claims that Ghana has trained more nurses than the country requires, insisting that the challenge facing the health sector is not excess supply but the failure to recruit and properly deploy available professionals.
The Council says more than 100,000 unemployed nurses could be absorbed into the health system if government provides the necessary financial clearance and expands health infrastructure to support their employment.
Registrar of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, Philomina Woolley, made the disclosure during a visit by Parliament’s Health Committee, where she argued that Ghana’s nurse-to-patient ratio remains inadequate despite the growing number of trained nurses.
She dismissed assertions that the country was producing too many nurses, saying the available numbers were still insufficient to meet healthcare demands.
“I wouldn’t say that we are having overproduction because when you look at the numbers, professional nurses are not that many,” she said.
According to her, several health facilities across the country continue to operate without adequate nursing staff, while many trained nurses remain unemployed due to limited recruitment opportunities.
“Most of the hospitals, when you go, they are empty, and so the nurses are not there. Most of them are in their homes. Therefore, if we are able to engage all of them and distribute them well, we wouldn’t have to say that we have overproduced,” she explained.
Ms Woolley said the country’s current nurse-to-patient ratio highlights the shortage of health professionals rather than an oversupply.
“When you look at the requirements, I think it is one nurse to about 830-something patients, which is even too high for us,” she stated.
She maintained that the solution lies in improving recruitment systems, securing financial clearance for employment and investing in health facilities to create space for trained nurses and midwives.
The NMC Registrar said properly absorbing and distributing unemployed nurses would strengthen healthcare delivery and address staffing gaps in hospitals and other health facilities across the country.
She urged stakeholders to move away from describing unemployed nurses as surplus labour, stressing that Ghana’s health system still requires more skilled personnel to meet patient needs.
