Intensive care units came with critical care nursing in Ghana. The ICU's root can be traced back to the monitoring Unit of critically ill patients by Florence Nightingale during the Crimean war when she brought down the high mortality of hospitalized soldiers from 40% to 2% with her critical care protocol.

Before the 1990s, there was no critical care nursing or intensive care in Ghana, though there was one British-trained critical care nurse.

The ICU existed in name, but there were no personnel, equipment, or skills to match the function in Korle-Bu teaching hospital (KBTH) until the National Cardiothoracic Centre (NCTC) was established, with an intensive care unit and critical care nurses initially trained in Germany.

The centre was the first in Ghana and became a training centre for nurses and other healthcare personnel. Mr. John Morris (An American Volunteer CCN) was very instrumental in the training of CCNs.

The need to train CCNs officially became a national concern, and the Ministry of Health (MOH) approved it. A curriculum was developed, and the training began in KBTH (1997) with a modular group drawn from the regions in Ghana.

 The first batch of 8 nurses started in 1998 for a year; currently, over 500 trained Critical care nurses are working in the ICUs, and emergency settings in Ghana, and the training is ongoing.