President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has urged new healthcare professionals across the country to accept postings to deprived communities.

President Akufo-Addo was speaking on Friday, 25 March 2022 at the 60th celebration of the University of Ghana Medical School in Accra.

The President also bemoaned the inadequate number of health professionals in the newly-created regions.

He said: “We currently do not have the right number of doctors, dentists and healthcare professionals with the right mix of skills and expertise in our regions, districts and deprived communities, especially for the new-created regions and districts.”

President Akufo-Addo also described the refusal of medical doctors to accept postings to deprived communities as worrying.

“The news of doctors refusing postings to these areas is particularly distressing. I encourage all medical practitioners to follow the warning example of your great forebears who readily accepted postings in their early years at a time when the national infrastructure was even more harrowing than it is today.”

“They did so because they believed the oath they took imposed a duty on them to offer their services, especially to the neediest. It was their work that helped build the nationwide health system for which we are all benefiting,” President Akufo-Addo stated.

The Savanna Regional Health Director, Dr Chrysantus Kubio, had earlier bemoaned the refusal of medical officers to accept postings to the region.

According to him, 85 per cent of medical doctors posted to the region in 2021 failed to show up at their various duty posts.

Speaking at the annual Regional Health Sector Performance Review Conference held in Damongo on Thursday, 10 March 2022, Dr Kubio said: “In the year under review, the region received 1,133 new staff, out of which 225 failed to report, representing a 20 per cent posting rejection rate”.

“Going into specific professions, medical officers rejection rate was 85 per cent”, he said.

Dr Kubio noted that the Municipal and District Assemblies in the region must devise means to curb the phenomenon.

“This calls for stakeholder deliberation at the various Municipal and District Assembly levels to devise means and attract these critical staff to accept postings to our region,” Dr Kubio stated.