The Health Ministry plans to recruit a large number of health professionals including doctors and nurses from various countries, including China, for new hospitals across the Kingdom.
“We need a lot of qualified health professionals,” said Khaled Mirghalani, spokesman of the ministry. However, he did not say how many doctors, nurses and paramedic staff the ministry would recruit in the coming months.
He downplayed the impact of a proposal made by Migrante, a Filipino migrant rights group, urging the Manila government to reduce the number of workers sent to Saudi Arabia because of the Kingdom’s latest Saudization campaign.
“We have not received any official confirmation about the Philippines’ plan to reduce manpower exports to the Kingdom,” Mirghalani told Arab News. He said the proposal would not affect existing Filipino health workers at Saudi hospitals and health centers.
Asked about plans to recruit Chinese nurses, he said: “The ministry wants to diversify its sources of manpower, especially after Migrante said there is a need to cut the export (quota) of Filipino workers. We are ready to recruit qualified health professionals from any country where there is a lack of Saudi citizens to meet our needs.” Mirghalani said the demand for health workers would grow in the coming months due to the opening of new hospitals.
In a recent statement, Migrante’s coordinator John Leonard Monterona said around 120,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFW) have been sent home since 2010 because of Saudization. “There are 40,000 to 60,000 documented OFWs in Saudi Arabia who will be directly or indirectly affected by Saudization, especially those working in sales, marketing, banking and other office-based job categories, which will soon be occupied by Saudis,” Monterona said.
MoH may hire Chinese nurses
