On June 19 and 20, 2025, Public Services International (PSI) organized a workshop for the introduction of the climate and care project in Ghana. Two of Ghana’s strongest health sector unions; the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) and the Health Services Workers’ Union (HSWU) of TUC Ghana, stood together to launch a project that puts health workers at the centre of climate resilience. The project responds to the urgent need to tackle the impact of climate change, which is already affecting frontline health and care workers in Ghana. It is supported by Fundación Avina.   

we sometimes have to scoop water from inside our facility after heavy rains or when the place is flooded. And this results in a delay in commencing work.

The recurrent floods in different parts of Ghana, growing heat waves and broken infrastructure show that the climate crisis is no longer a distant threat. It is a daily reality, especially for health and care workers in rural and underserved areas of Ghana. A healthcare worker noted that flooding causes them to report to work late, if at all they do sometimes. Increased patient loads and unsafe workplaces put them under severe pressure. Another participant noted that, “we sometimes have to scoop water from inside our facility after heavy rains or when the place is flooded. And this results in a delay in commencing work. But eager relatives and the patients see our plight as inadequacy”. These are the lived experiences of care workers across the country.  

PSI’s Safe Workers Save Lives campaign is crucial now. It is rooted in collective action and deep union collaboration.   

Learning by Doing: Turning Actionable Learning Experiences into Strategy   

The anchor of the project is action-based learning (ABL). It's a method that doesn’t just talk about problems but confronts them head-on through collective inquiry, documentation and action. Over two days, GRNMA and HSWU members and frontline workers came together to understand the climate threats they face, explore how to organize workplace-based responses, and begin mapping solutions from within.   

Participants’ ownership of the process was built. They pledged to return to their clinics, hospitals and community posts as “agents of change.” Some began drafting workplace action plans. Others started identifying how to raise awareness among colleagues and patients. One nurse saw it as an eyes’ opener for community engagement.  

ABL will continue in phases across health facilities in Ghana. It will uncover the hidden risks, build worker-led action, and inform direct negotiations with employers to improve Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) protections in light of climate hazards. Whether it’s negotiating shade structures, better infrastructures, improved conditions of service, water stations, workers would drive actions against the growing impacts of climate change on care work through the ABL approach.  

At the launch, Dr. Isaac Bampoe Addo, Chair of PSI’s National Coordinating Committee in Ghana, remarked that, “the launch of the Climate and Care project through action-based learning is a defining moment for our nation’s healthcare sector.” He urged unions to push for climate clauses in future Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs). Bampoe Addo praised the partnership between HSWU and GRNMA and called on both unions to take the campaign from actions to collective bargaining.   

Turning Needs into Policy Priorities  

GRNMA and HSWU are committed to seeing the lived realities of health and care workers reflected in Ghana’s climate and health policies. The project feeds directly into global movements for transition, gender-responsive health systems, and climate justice. Through the ABL and the research support from the University of Witwatersrand (WITS), Ghana joins other union-led initiatives in forming a growing body of knowledge, documentation and collective action.   

This project also aligns with Ghana’s National Climate Change Policy, the National Adaptation Plan, and international frameworks like the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals—especially SDG 3 on good health and SDG 13 on climate action. Without healthy, protected workers, there is no resilient health system. GRNMA President Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo, stressed that, “frontline workers cannot bear the climate burden alone. They must be part of the plan. They must shape the policies.”  

She described the chaos that flooding, heatwaves and rising temperatures have brought into hospitals, homes, and communities. Care workers are exhausted. Clinics are under-equipped. Their conditions of service are not met. But they still work and serve citizens. The launch and training are the first activities that marked the start of this participatory and learning project.   

What Comes Next?  

In the coming months, the project would enhance the resilience and wellbeing of health and care workers in Ghana by rolling out ABL sessions in priority districts, forming joint health and safety committees, gathering data on climate-related care burdens, and bringing that evidence into collective bargaining and national advocacy forums. This would enable GRNMA and HSWU to engage employers and the state to meet their policy obligations.