JEDDAH, 12 December 2004 — An expatriate nurse in Jubail says she was pressured to resign after she got pregnant. She said this in a letter to Arab News in reference to an article in the newspaper on nurses being terminated for getting pregnant.
“I had worked in one of the reputable hospitals in Jubail from September 2000 to May 2002 as a staff nurse. A few months after I started working, I got married. When I got pregnant I was verbally informed by the hospital management to submit a formal resignation letter as the hospital policy required all pregnant employees (Saudis or non-Saudis) to be terminated after five months of pregnancy,” she wrote.
The nurse requested that she be given a few months leave of absence without pay instead of termination but they refused. Upon request from her husband, who was working in Jubail she was granted transfer of sponsorship from her employer to her husband’s employer, but her husband had to shoulder all official fees.
Since 2003, she has been trying for a job with her previous employer as they promised to rehire her. However, they kept delaying.
“They explained that the hospital department wherein I was assigned before has no vacant positions. Later I learned that the hospital management hesitated to rehire me for the reason that I might get pregnant again,” she wrote.
She has been under her husband’s sponsorship for more than two years now. She said she was not officially terminated by her employer but was forced to “voluntarily” terminate the contract due to the hospital policy on pregnancy. However, she clearly mentioned in the letter that she resigned due to the hospital’s policy though she preferred to continue on the job.
“The labor law is clear about this matter and it is illegal to terminate an employee because she got pregnant,” Mohammad Jaber Nader, legal consultant, told Arab News. According to the law “a female employee shall be entitled to take as maternity leave the four weeks immediately preceding the expected date of delivery and six weeks following that date.”
Also, during her leave “she shall be entitled to half pay if she has been in the employer’s service for one year, and to full pay if she has been in service for three years or more as of the date of commencement of such leave,” the law says. Furthermore, “the costs of medical tests, treatment and delivery shall be borne by the employer. The employer shall not terminate the employee while she is on maternity leave.”
Nader said that the law applies to Saudis and non-Saudis and that the nurse can take legal action against her employer.
Arab News asked Sulaiman Al-Jaser, general manager of Fanateer Hospital, one of the major hospitals in Jubail, about policies toward nurses who get pregnant during their contract period. “Getting pregnant is no reason to terminate a nurse and it does not prevent her from doing her job,” said Al-Jaser.
He said that this policy is applied in all hospitals although some hospitals might have a clause in the contract stating that the nurse should not get pregnant during her two-year contract but the management is usually flexible in enforcing this clause because of the shortage in nurses.
“I expect that perhaps some private hospitals and small health institutes and clinics might enforce that clause because pregnancy costs is a financial expense to the hospital and the clinics have limited number of nurses so one nurse’s absence affects the work flow,” he said.
However, he insists that he never heard of any arbitrary termination of this kind, the hospital would usually not renew a nurse’s contract.
“A hospital management has to be understanding because it is only natural that a nurse gets pregnant and it is her right. In this hospital we would reduce her work load or transfer her to a department with simpler tasks because she is part of a team and we take into consideration her health condition,” he said.
