RIYADH: Saudi Arabia is in the process of recruiting 2,000 Filipino nurses and has announced 1,000 scholarships for Saudi girls in a move to address the shortage of specialist nursing staff.
More than 10,000 nurses are urgently required to make up for the shortfall and this move by the Ministry of Health (MOH) will help train Saudi nurses with the aim to cut dependence on foreign nursing staff.
“A number of seats for Saudi women have also been reserved in premier health institutions in Jordan, Australia, the US, Britain and Bahrain, to enable them to pursue specialist nursing training,” said Dr. Munira Al-Osaimi, MOH’s director general of nursing, here yesterday. The MOH, which is seeking to increase the number of Saudis in the nursing sector to 60 percent within the next five years, is also offering advance training to nurses who have graduated from Kingdom’s medical colleges.
Al-Osaimi said that Saudi Arabia’s health service is critically understaffed in areas including neonatal, intensive care, emergency care, pediatrics and these are the disciplines that typically require candidates to undergo extended additional training. She said that the overseas course slots have been selected for convenience rather than the quality of the degree on offer. These scholarships are part of a widespread campaign to attract more Saudi nurses to work in this field.
Referring to the ongoing recruitment of Filipino nurses, Chita Cilindro, regional director for the Manila-based Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), said that the recruitment is being made by the Saudi Ministry of Health in cooperation with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).
She said: “The recruitment process was assisted by POEA, an attached agency of DOLE; and the Saudi Embassy in Manila.” Cilindro also called on the applicants to approach the recruiting agencies as early as possible.
She pointed out that the candidates must be graduates in nursing with or without work experience. She said there will be no placement fees and that the salary range will be between SR2,250 to SR4,000.
