JEDDAH, 19 April 2006 — More than 120 male medical students from King Abdul Aziz University (KAAU) were allegedly forced to be present yesterday at one of the most important occasions in their lives. After seven or eight years of studying medicine, they graduated to become doctors.
These are students who claim that KAAU has failed to pay them their complete interns’ monthly allowances since September 2005. Full allowances have been paid to medical interns in other regions of the Kingdom. Officials at King Saud University in Riyadh and King Faisal University in Dammam confirmed that their interns had received the full monthly allowance of SR10,700.
At KAAU, however, medical interns of both sexes have received only SR6,000 beginning with their second month of internship. In addition, medical technology interns at KAAU had their allowances cut from SR6,000 to SR2,500.
Because of the pay cut, the students decided not to attend the graduation ceremony. The reason they cited was the unfair decision made by the dean of KAAU, Osamah Taib, to implement the Higher Council of Education rule to reduce their monthly allowances by 44 percent in September 2006.
When the dean of the Medical College, Hussain Malibari, heard about the strike, he held a meeting on Monday with the students and told them that if they did not attend the ceremony, they would never be hired by any of the Kingdom’s hospitals. It was the dean’s threat that made them agree to attend the ceremony. They also expressed their intention to seek help from Prince Mishal ibn Majid on behalf of Prince Abdul Majeed, governor of Makkah.
Arab News checked with other universities in the Kingdom and found that none of them had implemented the decision to reduce interns’ allowances. Arab News also has copies of official documents which show that medical students who studied abroad and came back to the Kingdom for their internship had permission to receive the full monthly allowance of SR10,700.
When the interns complained to the dean and asked him for an explanation, he told them they were unaware of administrative regulations and told them to leave.
When Arab News contacted Taib, he wouldn’t respond except to say that the decision to cut interns’ allowance was made on March 31, 2005 for 2006 by the Higher Education Council at its 36th meeting and approved by King Abdullah. He would not comment on what had happened to the money that was budgeted for this year but never paid to the KAAU interns.
In desperation, some 30 Jeddah interns filed a lawsuit in the Court of Grievances against Taib. The hearing was scheduled for Feb. 25 but on that day, the interns learned from the court that their case had nothing to do with the labor law and thus would be transferred to another court. They have since learned that the dean wrote to the court that the university budget would not allow the students to receive their full allowance. According to Arab News sources, the dean told the students that he would not pay their full allowances unless he received a royal order.
The male students’ strike was also supported by the female medical interns whose graduation took place three weeks ago. The female interns also handed their complaint to a higher official.
