Story by, Paul Mensah Nsor
The Ministry of Health has begun the next phase of a nationwide recruitment drive aimed at filling critical gaps in primary and community health services, the Director of Human Resource for Health Development, Mr. Frederick Mensah Acheampong, announced at a press briefing on Monday.
Funded by an allocation from the Ministry of Finance, the exercise targets roughly 8,000 new health professionals to help address a backlog of about 105,000 unemployed health workers and to support the government’s Free Primary Health Care policy. The recruitment emphasizes preventive, community-based and primary care delivery—particularly in underserved and rural districts.
To improve transparency and localize hiring, the Ministry deployed a new recruitment portal that routes applicants directly to district authorities for shortlisting and interviews. The portal ingested a baseline of roughly 53,440 health professional records; about 29,893 portal accounts were created, with approximately 26,606 users successfully completing profile creation.
Top applicant groups on the platform included registered general nurses, registered midwives and various nursing assistant cadres. The portal recorded exceptionally high traffic from Greater Accra and Eastern regions during peak submission periods; notably, West Mamprusi in the northern region logged one of the highest numbers of successful applications, reflecting the Ministry’s intent to redirect recruits toward rural and deprived areas.
The Ministry said allocations were guided by staffing norms and agency-submitted human resource needs, prioritizing districts with the greatest staffing gaps. While every region received some allocations, certain metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies received larger shares based on need.
Of the 6,500 slots initially presented for nurses and midwives, 6,245 applications were successfully submitted via the portal, with remaining positions set aside for critical roles at teaching hospitals and specialist institutions (which were intentionally excluded from the portal to ensure those facilities’ needs are met separately). Some 87 vacancies remain open on the portal—largely for registered public health nurses and certified registered assistants, concentrated in northern districts—and the Ministry intends to clear these in a forthcoming recruitment window.
Fraud prevention and security collaboration
Acknowledging the heightened risk of fraudulent activity during high-profile recruitment drives, the Ministry said it engaged security agencies throughout the process. Investigations are ongoing into suspected illegal collections and corrupt intermediaries, and the Ministry has urged professional leadership bodies to warn members against paying money to third parties promising employment.
Successful applicants will now be contacted by their respective district authorities for interviews and document verification. Those cleared will be onboarded to begin work from July 1, 2026, the Ministry said.
The Ministry also indicated it will continue to press the Ministry of Finance for additional funding and clearance to expand recruitment later in the year. Plans are underway to recruit medical officers to fill vacancies—especially in rural and underserved areas—and to launch a volunteer recruitment program for over 6,000 graduates from 2022 onward. Volunteers will initially prioritize nurse assistant preventive roles, receive stipends, and be given priority consideration in subsequent recruitment rounds.
Mr. Acheampong framed the drive as part of a broader push to redistribute health professionals more equitably nationwide and to bolster the team-based service delivery required to meet Ghana’s UHC and SDG health targets. He emphasized that future portal improvements will incorporate user feedback gathered during the initial rollout.
For updates on remaining vacancies, interview schedules and further recruitment rounds, candidates are advised to monitor official Ministry of Health channels and district health offices.
