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Her Open Letters 004

Her Open Letters: To the Ghana Medical and Dental Council Re: The Hours You Have Never Regulated Dear Members of the Ghana Medical and Dental Council, I am writing based on your own published guidelines and on public research involving your trainees. Your 2015 Guidelines on Housemanship Training set out the structure of training clearly: two years, six-month rotations, progression from House Officer to Senior House Officer. The guidelines do not set a limit on shift length. They do not set a minimum rest period between shifts and does do not include mental health support as part of the training structure. A document that regulates duration and sequence in detail says nothing about the physical condition of the person carrying out that sequence. The data on what this produces is public. A study of obstetric providers at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital found that 62 percent reported burnout (Lawrence et al., 2021). A study of health workers in Accra hospitals found burnout severe enough t...
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Policy Piece 004

  The Shift Never Ends. Why Ghana's Junior Doctors Are Running on Empty A doctor who hasn't slept in 30 hours is still expected to read your scan correctly, get your dosage right, and notice the thing that doesn't add up. Ghana's health system asks this of its youngest doctors routinely, and calls it training. The Issue House officers, the doctors in their first two years of practice, are the backbone of Ghana's public hospitals. They are also, by design, among the most overworked people in the building. Shifts stretching past 24 hours with minimal rest are standard, not exceptional, in the Ghanaian and wider West African training pipeline. A study of obstetric providers, including house officers, at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi found that 62 percent reported burnout (Lawrence et al., 2021). A separate study of health workers in resource-constrained Accra hospitals documented burnout severe enough to produce measurable physiological strain, what research...
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Her Open Letters 002

Her Open Letters: To the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection Re: A System Investigating Itself Into Exhaustion Dear Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, I am writing based on public statements from the Criminal Investigation Department and published research on child sexual abuse in Ghana. In May 2026, the CID's leadership stated publicly that they are overwhelmed by the volume of child sexual offences reaching them. Research referenced that same month identified 23 distinct offence categories against children, including abduction, emotional abuse, rape, child trafficking, and torture (Ghanaian Times, May 4, 2026). Defilement, sexual offences against children under 16, tops the list of reported child abuse cases in Ghana, according to a Child Rights International study cited in the same period. National survey data shows 23.9 percent of Ghanaian children aged 8 to 17 have experienced sexual abuse, and adults accounted for 56.8 percent of perpetrators (...
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Policy Piece 002

Overwhelmed and Unregistered. Ghana's Child Protection System Is Filing In Real Time In May 2026, Ghana's own Criminal Investigation Department said the quiet part out loud, "they are overwhelmed." Neither stretched nor under pressure. Overwhelmed. When the people whose job is to investigate crimes against children say they cannot keep up, then the system already in collapse. The Issue The Director-General of the CID, quoted in the Daily Guide on May 14, 2026, described the volume of child sexual offences as more than the current system can absorb. Research referenced in the same period identified 23 distinct offence categories against children, including abduction, emotional abuse, rape, child trafficking, and torture (Ghanaian Times, May 4, 2026). Defilement, sexual offences against children under 16, tops the list of reported child abuse cases in Ghana according to a Child Rights International study cited that same week. The numbers behind the headlines are just a...
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Her Open Letters 001

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Policy Piece 001

  The Degree That Doesn't Deliver. Our Skills Gap Problem Ghana produces graduates faster than its economy can absorb them. The Issue A World Bank policy note cited in recent reporting found that only 10 percent of Ghanaian graduates secure jobs within a year of leaving university (Asare, cited in Vaultz News, 2025). Ghana is not short of educated young people rather it is short of an education system that produces what the market actually needs. Add to this that roughly 1.9 million Ghanaian youth, most of them women, are neither in education, employment, nor training (Vaultz News, 2025), and the picture stops looking like a skills mismatch and starts looking like a structural failure. The Ghana Statistical Service's own labour force bulletin confirms it from the other direction, "among people stuck in long-term unemployment (20 months or more) between 2022 and 2023, 22.3 percent held tertiary qualifications" (Graphic Online, 2024). A degree is supposed to shorten you...
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