JEDDAH, 31 March 2008 — Although the Health Ministry has established 220 new dental clinics across the Kingdom, unemployed dentistry graduates are still unable to find jobs.
Many graduates, such as Dr. Nibras Al-Thakafi, who graduated as a dentist last August, do not even know of the establishment of the new clinics.
“I hope they will offer jobs to fresh graduates who haven’t found jobs,” said Al-Thakafi, who has found a job at a government hospital.
However, according to Dr. Muhammad Al-Rafii, director of the Dentistry Department at the Health Ministry, the new centers are only employing specialized dentists. “Only specialized dentists are going to be employed at these clinics,” said Al-Rafii.
Commenting on the fact that fresh graduates are struggling to find jobs, Al-Rafii said, “The reason for this problem is that graduates want to be employed in big cities like Riyadh and Jeddah, which already have enough of them. ... There are other regions that are still in need of dentists. The Saudization rate in the dentistry field is only 30 percent. So there is still space for more.”
Al-Rafii said that graduates should look toward specializing and undertaking postgraduate studies, especially with the big number of scholarships that are available. “When they come back after specialist studies, they have better opportunities, even in the main cities,” he said.
The Health Ministry is planning to spend SR27 million on the new clinics, said Al-Rafii, adding that there are more than 2,000 dental clinics in the Kingdom due to increasing cariosities, especially among children. “Over 90 percent of children have carious teeth and this requires advancement in dentistry according to the demand,” he said.
Dr. Maha Al-Cattan, who is working without pay at King Fahd General Hospital since graduating seven months ago, said graduates are finding it difficult to find jobs in Jeddah. “I applied to the Health Ministry when I graduated and so did many others. We’re still waiting to be employed,” she said.
Some clinics are hiring temporary positions without informing the applicants beforehand that the job is not permanent.
Graduates are complaining that “wasta” (an Arabic term for using personal connections) plays a big role in graduates getting the plum jobs in the profession.
Some graduates said they were told that no positions were available only to hear later that somebody took a position, often a relative or a friend of a person already working at the hospital.
Al-Cattan said that small health centers have few patients and fresh graduates do not often gain good experience there. “It’s different when you work at a hospital where specialized dentists train you,” she said, adding that some primary care dental centers are not well equipped and patients are often transferred to larger hospitals.
“How can we learn and train if the clinics are not equipped properly,” said Al-Cattan.
