Abdul Aziz Al-Khaneen said 4,000 of them would be employed by the Ministry of Health, 4,000 by other health departments and 6,000 by the private sector. "This distribution was within a royal decree issued recently to employ the graduates of the health institutes," he said. The spokesman said the ministry would preserve the data of the graduates who are to be absorbed by the private sector to employ them later in government departments if there are vacancies and if they still wish to join the public health sector.
"There is no rule preventing employees of the private sector joining government positions," he explained. The spokesman said the other 14,574 graduates would be absorbed later in the civil and military departments in addition to the private sector.
He said a meeting was held last week at the level of undersecretaries of the civil and military organizations concerned to formulate a mechanism for the employment of the male and female graduates of the health institutes in vacant positions and those which are currently filled by foreigners.
Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah had met four months ago a number of graduates from health institutions and said that the ministry would take them any time when there were vacancies. He told them that more than 60,000 Saudi men and women were already employed in technical and support jobs in the ministry.
The minister said about 60 percent of the health services in the Kingdom were provided by the ministry while the other 40 percent were extended by the private hospitals and other government departments.
Al-Rabeeah recalled that during the past two years, the ministry had employed a total of 14,772 Saudi men and women. He added that the ministry was closely coordinating with the Ministry of Civil Service to immediately take candidates it would propose.
When the graduates complained against the bad treatment they received from the private sector, the minister promised to take up the matter with the Ministry of Labor and the Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
