JEDDAH, 26 July 2005 — Medical students who are doing their internships have raised complaints after a decision by the Higher Council of Education to reduce their monthly salaries by 45 percent. Instead of SR10,700, they will now earn SR6,000 starting next September.
The reduction has forced many students to cancel or postpone education plans. Some have even chosen to transfer from the medical department to other fields of study. Medical students who are supposed to start their internships in September at King Saud University in Riyadh and at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, spoke to Arab News. They said that they had heard rumors about a decision like this every few years and that it is frustrating.
Two medical students at King Saud University, Turki Al-Turki, a fifth-year student; and Khalid Arab, in his fourth year, told Arab News that medical interns are often the ones who work the hardest at hospitals. They work for long hours, supervising the patients and are on call for emergencies.
Al-Turki said that the grueling schedule makes a part-time job out of the question. Arab said the decision meant that he and his colleagues would face a tougher start for their careers. He said that even though medical students spend seven years studying before even starting to work, whereas students in other fields only spend four to five years, the latter will receive better salaries than SR6,000.
“Is it fair for medical students who spend so many years studying to help cure people to be paid so little?” According to one calculation he and his colleagues made, a barber receives between SR20 to SR25 per hour as opposed to the SR16 that the medical interns will make hourly.
Tasneem Alakzam, a medical student who graduated after six years at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, is also disappointed by the decision. “When I graduated, I was having hopes and planning for my year as an intern.
Just like other students who have plans for their salary to finance a marriage or to continue their education, I was shocked.” She asked if this was the price of their psychological and physical struggle during their years as students. “Interns who work in the hospitals are considered the backbone of the hospitals and they would not be able to operate without us,” she said. Medical students unaffected by the decision were not unanimously against the reduction.
Fahad Basharaheel, who is finishing his internship this month, said that a number of intern students spend all their money without planning for the future. “When these students graduate, 55 percent of them save around SR20,000 to SR25,000 during the training.” Despite his expressed opinion, Fahad added that taking almost half of the salary would change the standard of living for students who had been hoping for better lives. He continued to say that though few interns could manage financial planning, they are not solely the ones to be blamed.
“Choosing medicine as a field of study, students have to spend a lot of money on their education in order to be a good doctor.” he said. “If a student from another field can get SR6,000 after four or five years of studying, why should we have to go through the frustration for seven years and still receive the same salary?” queried Maher Abo Alfaraj, a medical student at Taiba University in Madinah. He claimed that this decision will result in students withdrawing from medicine. Dissatisfied students are still hoping for a fair decision.
They communicate with each other on the Internet and through mobile messages, trying to gather as many voices and signatures as possible in order to send a letter to Crown Prince Abdullah.
The students contend the salary reduction may lead many to abandon medicine, and they can’t understand why against the backdrop of higher oil prices for the Kingdom they are being asked to forfeit their personal economic wellbeing.
