The Ghana Health Service(GHS) has announced that it will beginning next year employ medical doctors and dentists under a quota system.
The Director-General of the GHS, Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare, said the move will curb the practice where doctors decline postings to rural communities who are likewise in dire need of medical officers.
Speaking at a graduation ceremony over the weekend at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr. Asare stressed that doctors henceforth will apply to their respective regions before they can be employed.
“Our rural and deprived communities remains one of the priorities of this country. This explains why efforts are being made to ensure that each district should have a functional hospital that befits its status,” he said.
“Unfortunately, it has been observed that most young medical officers and dentists are reluctant to accept postings to work in such needy areas after their housemanship,” Dr. Asare noted, adding “this year, we have started interviewing doctors, we are not posting them anymore. We will not sit in Accra again and post any doctor.”
Ghana in its current state has one doctor attending to over 10, 000 patients; an unsatisfactorily imbalanced ratio, according to practitioners.
