The Ministry of Health has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the City of Columbus, Ohio, to create employment opportunities for Ghanaian nurses in the United States under an arrangement aimed at promoting structured and ethical international recruitment.
The agreement follows months of technical engagements involving Ghanaian and US authorities, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour, Jobs and Employment to establish a framework for the recruitment and deployment of Ghanaian health professionals.
The arrangement also builds on the existing sister-city relationship between Accra and Columbus and forms part of Ghana’s broader efforts to create international employment opportunities for qualified health professionals through the Ghana Labour Exchange Programme.
The government has increasingly pursued bilateral arrangements to place Ghanaian health professionals in countries experiencing workforce shortages.
In January 2026, Ghana deployed its first batch of 121 nurses, midwives and other allied health professionals to Antigua and Barbuda under the Ghana Labour Exchange Programme. The government said at the time that it was also working on placements in Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.
By June 2026, 47 Ghanaian nurses had also departed for St Kitts and Nevis under the programme. The group comprised 32 general nurses and 15 community and public health nurses and was placed on a two-year assignment, with the agreement providing for accommodation, remuneration, transportation, meals and other conditions of service. The nurses are expected to return to Ghana after their assignments with enhanced clinical experience.
The Ministry of Health opened its 2026 international recruitment process for Jamaica in June, inviting specialist nurses in areas including neonatology, oncology, critical care, nephrology, emergency, peri-operative nursing and registered nurse-midwifery.
The international placements are being pursued against the backdrop of a significant employment backlog. At the January 2026 departure of the first group to Antigua and Barbuda, Health Minister Kwabena Mintah Akandoh said the government had inherited a backlog of more than 80,000 health professionals who had completed various levels of training but were awaiting employment.
He explained that the government was pursuing both domestic recruitment and opportunities abroad because the national budget could not absorb all qualified professionals at once.
The Ghana Labour Exchange Programme, launched in 2025, is the government’s framework for connecting Ghanaian professionals and skilled workers with international labour markets. Its official platform identifies health professionals, including nurses and doctors, among the categories targeted for international placements.
The government has stressed that the overseas placements are intended to complement, rather than replace, domestic employment. The Ministry of Health has continued to recruit health professionals where financial clearance is available, while its recruitment portal states that qualified professionals can only be placed on the government payroll after receiving financial clearance from the Ministry of Finance.
The Ministry’s broader health workforce strategy also recognises migration as an important issue. Its health-sector assessment noted an increase in the public-sector nursing workforce between 2021 and 2023, but also pointed to the migration of professional nursing cadres following the COVID-19 pandemic and continuing challenges around the distribution and retention of health workers.
The Minister for Health stressed that the Columbus arrangement is intended to ensure that the deployment of Ghanaian health professionals is conducted in line with ethical recruitment principles, appropriate working conditions and protections for the welfare of workers abroad.
He noted that the initiative complements government’s agenda of securing credible and decent international employment opportunities for health professionals in line with Ghana’s Migration Policy and relevant international standards.
The agreement with Columbus adds another destination to Ghana’s growing international health-worker placement programme, as government seeks to address unemployment among trained health professionals while responding to labour shortages in partner countries.
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