The Ministry of Health (MoH) has announced plans to introduce a volunteer programme for more than 6,000 unemployed health graduates awaiting recruitment into the public health sector.
According to the ministry, the initiative will focus on deploying health professionals to rural and deprived communities across the country.
The programme is expected to cover health professionals who completed training from 2022 to date but were not captured under the current recruitment exercise for the 2021 batch of nurses and midwives.
Addressing a press conference in Accra on Monday, May 18, 2026, the Director in charge of Human Resources at the Ministry of Health, Frederick Mensah-Acheampong, said implementation processes would begin in the coming weeks alongside a mop-up exercise to fill remaining vacancies.
Under the arrangement, volunteers will receive stipends and be prioritised during future mainstream recruitment exercises.
“These volunteers will be given some stipends and then they will also be considered, they will be given some priority when we are going to do the main recruitment,” Mr Mensah-Acheampong explained.
He, however, did not disclose the amount to be paid as stipends or the full terms of the programme.
According to him, nurse assistant preventive cadres will be given first consideration under the volunteer programme, followed by other assistant categories as part of efforts to strengthen preventive and community healthcare delivery.
The ministry also announced plans to begin a separate recruitment exercise for medical officers to fill vacancies in underserved areas.
Although the number of doctors to be recruited was not disclosed, Mr Mensah-Acheampong said the process would commence in the coming weeks.
He explained that the move follows the growing backlog of unemployed health professionals nationwide.
According to the ministry, approximately 105,000 trained health professionals are currently unemployed across the country.
The figure represents an increase from the 74,000 backlog earlier mentioned by the Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, in Parliament in 2025.
Mr Mensah-Acheampong said the ministry intends to distribute available financial clearance across all professional categories regardless of the number of vacancies available at a particular time.
“Even if you get one, you will share for everybody to get some form of it,” he stated.
He added that successful applicants under the current recruitment exercise would report to their district health directorates for interviews and document verification before assumption of duty.
According to him, newly recruited health professionals are expected to begin work on July 1, 2026.
“We are not going to allow anyone to work, and they will not be paid,” he assured.
The ministry also expects additional financial clearance from the Ministry of Finance before the end of the year to support another phase of recruitment.
Mr Mensah-Acheampong advised health professionals to regularly update their details on the ministry’s recruitment portal instead of waiting until recruitment windows are officially announced.
“If your records are not there, you can contact the ministry so that it can help you to rectify them. You don’t want to wait until recruitment is out before you rush to do some of these things,” he said.
