Ghana’s Preventive Health Nurses sound the alarm on NCD crisis, and they need more than motorbikes
They are the backbone of Ghana’s preventive healthcare system, working in communities, conducting screenings, administering vaccines, and monitoring patients far from the reach of major hospitals. But Ghana’s Preventive Health Nurses say they are doing all of this without the support they need, and the country is paying the price in lives.
At their maiden Biennial General Conference held recently in Kumasi, the Preventive Health Nurses of Ghana, known as PREHENS-GH, delivered an urgent and unambiguous message to government and the wider public: the country’s rising burden of Non-Communicable Diseases demands immediate attention, and the nurses on the frontlines of that fight cannot win it alone.
The numbers driving their concern are stark. Between 40 and 50 percent of deaths in Ghana are now attributed to NCDs, conditions such as cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Globally, that figure stands at 71 percent, and Ghana’s trajectory suggests it is heading in the same direction unless intervention is scaled up significantly and urgently.
Chairperson of PREHENS-GH, Ms. Dora-Jones Yaidoo, used the conference platform to strip the appeal down to its most honest form, not a request for equipment, but for genuine, sustained investment in the people doing the work.
“The appeal I want to make, the regional director has said a lot, but it’s not about motorbikes, it’s not about providing us vaccine carriers and the rest. Sometimes we also need to be supported financially to reach into the communities. Even though we are the backbone of preventive health, we need a lot of support, we need but we don’t get it. We write proposals, and we don’t get the support. We want to use this forum to tell the government and well-wishing Ghanaians that when we write to you to come and support such a worthy initiative like this, please give us the attention,” she asserted.
The conference, held under the theme Unveiling a Community-Based Approach To NCD Care Through Wellness Centers And Preventive Health Nurse-Led Outreach, brought together preventive health nurses from across the country to strengthen collaboration and build the case for a community-driven strategy anchored in early screening, wellness centres, and consistent outreach.
The Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Fred Adomako Boateng, lent his voice to the call, underscoring the unique position preventive health nurses occupy, not just as service providers, but as trusted community members capable of identifying disease early because they are already embedded in the communities they serve.
“If we improve the screening mechanisms and they’re empowered to be able to screen because they live in the community, they’re able to pick them very well,” he said.
But Dr. Boateng also identified a critical gap that is turning early diagnoses into death sentences, the absence of consistent follow-up care after initial detection.
“One issue that we’re battling with when it comes to cancers or other Non-Communicable Diseases is that you can pick them as early as possible at the stage where you can do something about it, but most of the time, what happens is that these people are left on their own, and they’re lost to follow-up. By the time they reach the facility, it’s terminal. Can we then ride on the PREHENS-GH and form the navigation system?” he asked.
It was a question that captured the conference’s central argument: that preventive health nurses, properly resourced, could serve as the connective tissue between early detection and sustained care, bridging the gap that is currently costing lives.
That message resonated beyond the health sector. Nana Boakye Yam Ababio, Nkwantakesehene and Deputy Speaker of the Nifa Division of the Kumasi Traditional Area, added the weight of traditional authority to the appeal.
“The Preventive Health Nurses of Ghana, they’re doing their part so far as Non-Communicable Diseases are concerned. They have to be resourced to perform better, and because they don’t have the resources, I’m appealing to the government to give them the extra resources so that they can work to reduce NCDs in the country,” he said.
PREHENS-GH was formed through the merger of registered community health nurses, community health nurses, and public health nurses, a consolidation designed to strengthen the country’s preventive healthcare architecture. Though the group’s roots lie in the fight against communicable diseases, its leadership is clear that the shifting burden of illness in Ghana demands a strategic evolution, one that places NCDs, and the communities most vulnerable to them, at the very centre of the national health agenda.
The nurses have made their case. Now they are waiting for an answer.
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