On a Saturday morning in late June, 47 carefully selected Ghanaian nursing professionals departed Accra International Airport to begin a two-year work placement at a major medical facility in the Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis. This deployment marks the latest milestone under the Ghana Labour Exchange Programme (GLEP), a structured bilateral initiative designed to deliver mutual benefits for both Ghana and its international partner countries.
Of the 47 departing nurses, 32 are general practice nurses, while the remaining 15 specialize in community and public health. The bilateral agreement governing this placement guarantees all participating nurses comprehensive working terms and welfare support, including furnished accommodation, competitive remuneration, local transportation, meal allowances, and other pre-negotiated working conditions.
Senior Ghanaian government officials were on hand to send the nursing cohort off, including Deputy Minister of Health Dr. Grace Ayensu-Danquah and Deputy Chief of Staff for Administration Nana Oye Bampoe Addo. Also in attendance were senior representatives from Ghana’s Ministry of Health, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the GLEP administrative secretariat.
In her remarks to the departing nurses ahead of their journey, Dr. Ayensu-Danquah emphasized the dual purpose of the international placement: delivering much-needed workforce support to St Kitts and Nevis’ public health system, while allowing the Ghanaian nurses to build advanced clinical skills and gain hands-on international professional experience. At the conclusion of their two-year assignment, all nurses will return to Ghana to contribute their enhanced expertise to the country’s domestic healthcare ecosystem.
Dr. Ayensu-Danquah encouraged the cohort to approach the opportunity with intentionality, noting, “Don’t go and come back the same way you left. It is an opportunity for you to learn something, come back and support our health system.” She also confirmed that the Ghanaian government has established formal support mechanisms to assist nurses with any challenges they may face while working abroad, urging early communication to ensure issues are resolved quickly.
Speaking to reporters following the send-off ceremony, the Deputy Minister explained that the participating nurses were selected through a rigorous competitive recruitment process, conducted jointly by Ghanaian health authorities and recruitment representatives from St Kitts and Nevis. Successful candidates were chosen based on their demonstration of clinical competence, professional conduct, and the resilience required for international deployment.
She framed the GLEP as a core component of the government’s broader strategy to address the long-standing backlog of qualified, trained but unemployed health professionals across Ghana, even as the administration expands domestic recruitment of healthcare workers. This year alone, the government has launched recruitment for the 2021 cohort of nurses and allied health workers, with a target of hiring more than 25,000 health professionals for domestic roles, while simultaneously developing structured managed migration opportunities with partner nations.
Additional cohorts of Ghanaian health professionals are already in the recruitment pipeline, with future departures planned for other Caribbean countries including Jamaica, the Bahamas and Grenada, following the same rigorous joint selection process, Dr. Ayensu-Danquah confirmed. To date, Ghana has finalized formal bilateral labour mobility agreements with 14 countries that are actively seeking qualified Ghanaian health professionals, with each agreement tailored to the partner nation’s specific workforce needs and including binding negotiated provisions for worker welfare, pay and working conditions.
For her part, Deputy Chief of Staff Nana Oye Bampoe Addo described the departure of the St Kitts and Nevis cohort as a key milestone for the GLEP initiative. She noted that the programme creates a formal, ethical, and coordinated framework for labour mobility that unlocks valuable international opportunities for Ghanaian health workers while preserving their ties to their home country.
By creating legal, mutually beneficial placements abroad, the GLEP directly addresses the challenge of high unemployment among thousands of trained Ghanaian health professionals, Nana Oye Bampoe Addo explained. She urged the departing nurses to act as cultural and professional ambassadors for Ghana during their time abroad, upholding the nation’s positive reputation through discipline and consistent professionalism. “You are now ambassadors of Ghana, and the world will judge us by how you conduct yourselves,” she told the cohort.