The HR system in the health sector must be fixed [Article]

It is very worrying for internship nurses and midwives to cry and share pain before their internship allowance is paid.

Since April 2019 to date, and some don’t even have their IDs, others too their inputs have not been done.
The story is not different from that of staff nurses and midwives (newly recruited). Yet we expect them to be magicians and provide quality healthcare services. So I ask, with what? With hunger or starvation?

The nurse-midwife trainees’ allowances also suffer the same delayed payment. Why can’t it be mechanized through Controller and Accountants General Department to ensure consistent payment every month? Such delays create the impression that some people invest the money for their personal interest (huge profit margins) before releasing it to the trainees, as alleged. Well, I hope it’s not true. The erroneous system must be fixed! Delayed payment of trainees allowances, internships allowances and salaries of new entrants must be a thing of the past.

Why should the system traumatize such hard-working essential service providers in that manner?
The health system building block unit, human resource has been poorly managed for long and it is high time a serious stakeholder engagement is organized to fix the situation permanently.

Furthermore, the Ministry of Health failed in the delivery of the online recruitment portal system. Another HR issue we should be worried about.

When the Ghana Health Service initiated this online recruitment portal system, the objective was very clear. That is, to ensure equitable distribution of healthcare providers to all regions and feasibility study was ongoing to extend the initiative to the various districts. The initiative did not only ensure equitable distribution and smooth placement (first come first serve. The region you select online base on vacancy available, is the region you are placed), it also reduced the human factor including alleged bribery and corruption (pay for preferred region).

The online recruitment portal was gradually becoming successful under the management of the health policy implementation body, Ghana Health Service, until the health policy formulation body, the Ministry of Health took over the initiative. For the first time under the management of MoH, there were unprecedented alleged bribery and corruption cases (pay for preferred region and pay for financial clearance). For the first time in decades, MoH placed health workers directly to the regional health directorates. This is very weird because the MoH only distributes quotas to the health agencies, and the agencies use their staff gap analysis to place the professionals to the respective regions. The regions also distribute them to the various districts using the staff gap analysis.

This is to ensure equitable distribution to contribute to the achievement of Universal Health Coverage and Primary Health Care.

Proposals…

1. Nurse Midwife trainees allowances should be mechanized and paid through CAGD system

2. If the system is having issues with payment process, why can’t we maintain internship nurses and midwives on their monthly trainees allowances to sustain them as the HRs work on their inputs for their internship allowances (then deduct all the trainees allowances paid while they were waiting for their internship allowance payment)?

3. Why can’t the system maintain staff nurses and midwives on internship allowances as the HRs work on their inputs for staff salary (then deduct all internship allowances paid while they were waiting for their staff salary)?

4. The above proposals can be well implemented with effective and reliable Human Resource Information Management System (HRIMS)

5. Lastly, the Ministry of Health should see itself as a policy formulation body and act as such. Policy implementation is the mandate of the Ghana Health Service and the agencies submit reports on health policy implementation to the MoH.
Going forward, the MoH has to distribute the healthcare Professionals to the respective agencies according to the agreed quota, and allow the agencies to use their respective innovations (online recruitment portal system) to distribute them equally to the regions. The agencies should redesign the system to extend the initiative to the districts as well.

6. There should be a stakeholder engagement to find sustainable solutions to redress such HR challenges