3,400 Allied Health professionals granted financial clearance – Oko Boye

The Ministry of Health has announced that it has secured financial clearance for about 3,400 Allied Health professionals across the country.

The Deputy Health Minister, Dr Bernard Oko Boye disclosed this at the induction of 170 Allied Health graduates by the Allied Health profession council on Wednesday.

The clearance means health professionals will soon be able to apply for postings to the various health centres.

“We had a backlog of close to 4,000 people. As we speak, the government has given financial clearance to about 3,400 health professionals.

“The portal will be opened in the coming weeks so they can go online, apply and be posted across the country,” the deputy health minister revealed.

Dr Oko Boye also urged the newly inducted health professionals not to reject postings to the rural areas.

“People who have been posted to other regions apart from Greater Accra and Ashanti Region are coming back asking us to re-route them to Accra and Kumasi.”

“You cannot have a situation where 80 to 90% of all our staff are caught up in only two regions,” Accra-based Citi FM reported.

According to the deputy health minister, there has been several complains of health professionals refusing to go to the rural areas when posted.

He further noted that since he took office, there has been a lot of pressure on the ministry for reposting.

Dr Oko Boye is convinced that matters of reposting is, therefore “very pressing and dire.”

This comes on the back of agitations from various health professionals about when the path will be cleared for them to be posted.

In April, members of the 2017 and 2018 batch of unemployed Allied Health Professionals threatened to demonstrate to register their displeasure over the government’s inability to grant them clearance.