By Grace Zigah
In a firm directive aimed at addressing critical healthcare staffing gaps, the Minister for Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, has cautioned newly qualified doctors that failure to accept postings to rural and underserved areas could result in removal from the government payroll by the end of February 2026.
The warning was issued during a working visit to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and the University of Ghana College of Health Sciences, where the Minister met with medical trainers and lecturers to discuss strategies for equitable healthcare delivery nationwide.
Akandoh emphasized the importance of deploying doctors to all parts of the country, particularly rural communities that face chronic shortages of medical personnel.
He urged lecturers to encourage graduates to embrace postings outside urban centres, highlighting the subsidized nature of medical education: “Our education is highly subsidised, even for fee-paying students. So if the cocoa-producing farmers in my constituency, Sefwi Antobea, have been used to fund your education and you come and tell me that the place is a village, then I beg to differ,” he remarked, reinforcing the moral obligation of service to the wider public.
The Minister announced that a validation exercise would be conducted at the end of February 2026 to ensure compliance.
Doctors who fail to report to their assigned postings would have their names removed from the payroll.
“By the end of February, we will do validation. If you have not reported, we will take your name out of the payroll,” he stated, underlining the government’s commitment to strict enforcement of rural postings.
