The Ministry of Health will begin the recruitment of medical doctors and dentists tomorrow (Tuesday, February 9).

A statement signed and issued by the acting Chief Director of the ministry, Kwabena Boadu Oku-Afari, said the recruitment would cover only those who had permanently registered with the Medical and Dental Council and had “completed their house job”.

“Qualified applicants are requested to formally apply on the Ministry of Health online application portal and follow the instructions to select the preferred agency under the ministry. The deadline for the submission of applications is 6 p.m. on Friday, February 19, 2021,” it added.

Previous recruitment

In 2019, the ministry recruited unemployed privately and publicly trained nurses in the country.

The ministry, in a statement then, said the recruitment process was for those who had received their certification between 2012 and 2016.

That was after the Ghana Health Service (GHS) had announced that it would be giving some 20,084 nurses financial clearance to be employed in healthcare institutions across the country.

A similar process took place in May last year to recruit medical doctors and dentists who had completed their house job and were permanently registered with the Medical and Dental Council.

The government has, in the past three years, recruited 92,000 nurses, leaving no backlog of graduate nurses in the country.

This follows the financial clearance the MoH received to recruit more nurses to augment the national numbers.

Protests

In January 2020, graduate nurses and midwives who were yet to be employed by the MoH, after they had completed their education, threatened a demonstration to press home their unemployed status.

They said the government’s failure to employ them, with the excuse of not having the financial muscle to pay them, was untenable.

According to the group, only the 2016 batch of graduates had been employed then, and that all others, including some who completed in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017, had not yet been cleared for employment.