New Patriotic Party presidential candidate Mahamudu Bawumia says Ghana’s health policies need fundamental change after doctors’ leaders pressed him on pay, staffing and a proposed licensing exam on 28 September.
The former vice-president met the National Executive Committee of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) at the association’s headquarters at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra on Monday, 28 September 2026. The meeting, led by GMA President Ernest Yorke, is part of a round of consultations Bawumia is holding with professional and interest groups ahead of the 2028 election.
The issues put to him go to the heart of Ghana’s struggle to keep doctors in the public system. The GMA raised the retention and migration of health workers, pay and conditions of service, the uneven spread of doctors across the country, deprived-area allowances, hospital infrastructure, emergency preparedness and the role of private providers.
Bawumia said the discussions had convinced him a paradigm shift was needed in health policy, and that some proposals the doctors presented could transform the welfare of doctors and the wider sector if implemented. “Healthcare delivery is a collaborative mission,” he said in a post on Facebook after the meeting. He did not set out specific policies.
His call for a shift comes from a politician who was part of the previous government. Bawumia served as vice-president from January 2017 to January 2025, when the NPP administration he belonged to was responsible for health policy.
Licensing exam in focus
One of the sharpest issues on the table was a Medical and Dental Council proposal for an additional licensing examination for doctors trained in Ghana. Foreign-trained doctors have long had to pass the council’s registration exam before practising, and the council has capped them at five attempts since 2022.
The council said in December 2023 that it would work, with World Health Organization support, on a common registration examination for both locally and foreign-trained medical and dental practitioners.
The GMA elected Yorke, an endocrinologist and senior lecturer at the University of Ghana Medical School, as its president in November 2025.
