JEDDAH, 14 December 2005 — Medical interns at the King Abdul Aziz University (KAAU) are complaining that a cut in pay scheduled to take effect next year was prematurely applied to them.
The Ministry of Higher Education announced a 44 percent pay cut, scheduled to take effect in 2006, which would reduce interns’ monthly allowances from SR10,700 to SR6,000.
However, most of the 187 KAAU interns in Jeddah received the cuts for three months of their current tenures while interns at two other Kingdom hospitals received their full allowances.
“When we asked our peers in the Eastern Province and in Riyadh (about the pay cuts) they told us that they have received SR10,700 for the past three months,” said Ahmad H., a KAAU medical intern. All interns cited in this story asked that their last names be withheld.
Officials at two other university hospitals (King Saud University in Riyadh and King Faisal University in Dammam) told Arab News that their interns are receiving the full SR10,700 allowance.
Arab News received copies of official documents showing that Saudi undergraduate students who studied abroad and came to Jeddah to do their internship received an approval to receive their SR10,700 monthly allowances.
One Jeddah medical intern, Asma S., also claims that some KAAU interns are receiving the full allowance while others have been short-changed.
“One of our colleagues received his bachelor’s degree from Jordan and came to do his internship in (KAAU),” said Asma. “He received SR10,700, unlike us who received SR10,700 in the first month and then suddenly we started getting the SR6,000 allowance that is supposed to be implemented next year.”
One of these interns approached the Finance Ministry before their allowances were given. The ministry told them that they would receive the full sum, but one intern claims that after a meeting between ministry officials and KAAU Dean Osama Taib, Jeddah interns receive SR24,483, or SR10,700 for the first month and SR6,000 for the other three months.
“When we went to the dean’s office to ask him to explain, he said that we are unaware of administrative regulations and forced us to leave,” said Mona B.
When Arab News contacted Taib to ask him to explain why Jeddah interns were being short-changed in relation to interns at other hospitals, he wouldn’t respond except to say that the decision to cut interns’ pay next year was made on March 31 by the Higher Education Council in its 36th meeting and approved by King Abdullah. He wouldn’t comment on what happened to the money that was budgeted for this year but never paid to the KAAU interns.
“When are we going to get the rest of our dues back? Why did we not get it yet?” These are the Jeddah medical interns’ questions that, as of the publication of this report, remain as unanswered as their dues owed.
