John Dramani is Ghana’s president
17th June, 2025.
Your Excellency,
I write to you not only as a pharmacist but as a concerned citizen who has the health and well-being of our nation at heart. With deep respect for your commitment to improving healthcare in Ghana, I am compelled to bring to your attention a matter of urgent importance: the need to recruit more pharmacists into the public healthcare system.
Pharmacists are a critical pillar of the healthcare delivery system. We ensure the rational use of medicines, promote patient safety, manage medicine supply chains, provide drug information, and play critical role in clinical care teams.
Yet, in many healthcare facilities across the country, pharmacists are either available and overstretched or absent. This gap poses a serious threat to patient and medication safety, quality care, and efficient service delivery.
Your excellency, the last time pharmacists were actively recruited was in 2020. The recruitment of 300 pharmacists, although helpful, is highly inadequate.
In the last five years, more than a 1000 pharmacists have fulfilled all requirements and have been inducted into the pharmacy fraternity as registered pharmacists. Despite the increasing number of qualified pharmacists, many remain unemployed or underutilized, while healthcare facilities remain understaffed and continue to experience preventable medicine-related challenges. The situation is not due to a lack of trained professionals but a lack of recruitment.
Like our country, the pharmacy fraternity has a young population; vibrant, innovative and ready to serve the country. As a collective, we are not making full use of the human resource available to us, making our health system operate below its potential.
Your Excellency, the recruitment of more pharmacists will not only strengthen our public health infrastructure but also align with your vision of providing quality, affordable and accessible healthcare to all Ghanaians, as well as the interlinked Sustainable Development Goals. Investing in pharmacists is investing in human lives; medicines well managed; and systems that work efficiently for the benefit of all Ghanaians.
I humbly urge you to prioritize the employment of pharmacists. Ghana needs us now more than ever.
Respectfully,
D R Agbenyo (PharmD; MPH)
Registered Pharmacist
