The recruitment of nurses by western countries from poorer nations is “out of control”, according to the head of one of the world’s biggest nursing groups.
Howard Catton from the International Council of Nurses (ICN) is concerned about the scale of the numbers leaving countries like Ghana.
“My sense is that the situation currently is out of control,” he went on to say that Ghanas health system is struggling due to a “brain drain” of nurses leaving for Europe.
Westminster has said active recruitment in Ghana is not allowed, but social media means nurses can easily see the vacancies available in NHS trusts. They can then apply for those jobs directly.
The head of nursing at Greater Accra Regional Hospital, Gifty Aryee, told the BBC her Intensive Care Unit alone had lost 20 nurses to the UK and US in the last six months.
One nurse in the hospital estimated that half of those she had graduated with had left the country – and she had every intention of joining them. Another hospital employee said she had seen 22 nurses leave for the UK in the last year alone.
This opens up a massive question about immigration into the west. We are often lectured by the political class about the “doctors and engineers” that move to the first world as being beneficial to us and them, but what of the countries they leave behind?
How are countries like Ghana ever supposed to flourish if we keep poaching their brightest and best? We can and do send them financial aid, but as we all know throwing money at a problem just causes other problems.
The Homeland Party would encourage people of developing nations to embrace our ideals, stay where they are, struggle and fight for their own communities, not abandon them. We commend the nurses and others who stay in their own country, the conditions must at times be dreadful and the call of a better life in the west must be very tempting, but they stay to help their own, they are truly heroic.
