RIYADH, 1 May 2003 — It is very troubling and possibly dangerous when people are victimized — especially when dealing with their health. Al-Jazirah newspaper looked at the stories of some doctors with false degrees. What is most worrying of all is that these unqualified doctors worked for a long time in Saudi Arabia.
They were playing with people’s lives and nobody noticed.
A foreign doctor came to Saudi Arabia five years ago. He worked in a private clinic which believed that he had surgical qualifications from an Indian university. When he applied to verify his qualifications to the Saudi Committee for Medical Specialization — a body which verifies the authenticity of medical certificates and degrees — he was told to take an exam but instead he left the country, claiming to have family problems. He returned eight months later and once again was employed in a private clinic. He applied to the committee again, this time with a degree and a new passport. The committee, however, discovered the fraud before he was able to harm any unsuspecting patients.
The Health Affairs Department in Madinah arrested the owner of a pharmacy and the pharmacist after investigating a case when a child almost died because of an incorrect prescription.
The department later found out that the pharmacist had originally come to the Kingdom as a driver. The child had almost died because the pharmacy owner employed a driver who spoke English to work as a pharmacist.
An Asian worker came to Saudi Arabia with a visa to work as a mechanic. He was unhappy as a mechanic so he decided to work as a pharmacist. He obtained a fake degree in pharmacy and also fake documents indicating his work experience. He was able to change his visa from mechanic to pharmacist. He had to apply to the committee to verify his degree and allow him to work.
The committe, however, discovered that his qualifications as a pharmacist were in fact non-existent as were his documents pertaining to his experience. When he was confronted, he confessed and was then transferred to the criminal investigation department.
An Asian worked in Madinah as a pharmacist for 14 years. He was exposed when he returned home and came back to the Kingdom with a different sponsor. He was unaware of the committee’s function so he submitted all his fake degrees and certificates.
The committe discovered his lack of qualifcations and when confronted with the evidence, he confessed.
Al-Jazirah took these stories to the secretary of the Saudi Committee for Medical Specialization, Dr. Hussein Al-Fraihi. He said, “Saudi Arabia is not the only country which has this problem. We read in newspapers about unqualified doctors being caught in industrial countries such as America and England.
Maybe Saudi Arabia suffers more because we hire doctors from 50 different countries. As you know, it is very easy to obtain fake certificate in some countries. We will not allow these unqualified people to make profits at the expense of the lives of Saudis or non-Saudis.”
He explained further, “The number of unqualified medical personnel who applied to work here over the last two years is 107. There have been only 12 unqualified doctors out of 107 applicants.
Most unqualified personnel want to work as pharmacists and most of them work in the private sector. Out of all these cases, there was only one case of a Saudi doctor without a proper certificate.”
