Identifying Pull and Push Factors of Health Workers in Rural Ghana (A Case Study- Mpohor Wassa East District in the Western Region)
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Date
2011-07-20
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Abstract
Rural areas of Ghana are facing serious health workforce shortage, especially medical doctors. Though several policies and schemes have been implemented to improve recruitment to and retention of the rural health workforce in Ghana, health workers still find it difficult to accept posting to rural communities. This study, therefore examines the factors that mostly pull health care workers to and factors that mostly push them from rural areas of Ghana. The study relied on data gathered from a field survey conducted in Mpohor Wassa East District in Ghana. The data was collected through personal interview with the help of a structured questionnaire. Binary Logit regressions were estimated to assess the impact of financial, staff accommodation, working conditions, professional advancement and socio-economic infrastructures on willingness to remain in rural health post in Ghana and the characteristics of health care workers who would opt for these retention factors. From the result, financial incentives and Socio-economic infrastructures were significant in influencing the willingness of health workers to remain at rural health post in Ghana, whiles other explanatory variables (staff accommodation, working conditions and professional advancement) were not significant. The study found that financial hardship and poor socio-economic infrastructures are push factors and reasons for dissatisfaction at the current post for various health professionals in rural Ghana. Moreover, the findings indicate that 61% of the respondents were unsatisfied with current post and the willingness of health workers to remain at their respective health post depends on the level of satisfaction. 12
The following recommendation were made based on the findings: financial incentives is most important factor the attracts and increases the willingness to stay in rural of Ghana and it should target male health care workers more than female health care workers, Male and married health workers should be given more opportunities to pursue higher professions as a way of motivating them to remain in rural of Ghana, all health workers in rural areas in Ghana should be given befitting staff accommodation, regardless of gender, age, marital status, educational level and health profession type since they are all equally motivated by it, the government should provide more drugs, bed and equipment in all rural health post especially were males and aged dominate and finally government and other stakeholders should embark on rigorous provision of such facilities to help curb migration of health care workers from these rural communities and also to attract more health care workers to rural communities.
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A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Award of A Master of Arts Degree in Economics, 2011.