Dammam: Saudi Arabia is upgrading its nursing education and training program to better prepare the Kingdom in attaining its goal of providing better healthcare for every citizen by the year 2010.
The upgrading of the Saudi nursing profession also supports the government Saudization program in the health sector, which employs mostly expatriate nurses and doctors.
There are over 30,000 Saudi nurses, male and female, who are holders of nursing certificates from government health sciences colleges and other teaching institutions who need further education and training, said Dr. Nabil Kurashi, Family and Community Medicine professor and coordinator of academic studies at the King Fahd Hospital of the University.
He said about 80 percent of these Saudi nurses completed only three years of nursing studies, plus a four to six-months internship program. They were mostly either high school graduates or graduates of intermediate school.
The majority of those who completed the three year certificate level are male nurses. While most of the women hold a baccalaureate degree in nursing which they obtained from government universities or private institutions.
According to Kurashi, nursing education in Saudi Arabia is not as advanced as in other countries.
In the past we used to accept anyone who completed elementary to obtain a nursing degree because it was seen as an unpopular job with a low salary.
The starting salary for a Saudi nurse now is SR7,500 plus incentives, commented Kurashi.
The training program planned for Saudi nurses who completed only the three year certificate course is aiming to allow them to continue their studies and obtain a baccalaureate degree while they work in government hospitals or other medical centers.
Those connected with the Ministry of Health can obtain scholarships, while those who recently completed the three-year course can continue their studies leading to Bachelor of Nursing degree under the scholarship program of the Ministry of Higher Education.
The program of studies leading to a baccalaureate degree in nursing will be jointly undertaken by the Ministry of Heath and private institutions that will be qualified to offer the required education and training.
We call this thrust, the upgrading of the Saudi nursing profession , the Bridging Program in Nursing. It will also answer to the call of the World Health Organization (WHO) that nurses must have a minimum of bachelor degree to be able to practice, Kurashi said.
The upgrading in the education and training of Saudi nurses, even while currently on their job, has been approved by the Council of Saudi Ministers and has directed the Ministry of Health to implement the program in government universities and in approved and qualified private institutions.
Kurashi said private educational and training institutions are now very much active in this bridging program in nursing. A number of them, like for example the Arab Development Institute (ADI), which has a collaboration with the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) of Australia are closely cooperating with the Ministry of Health in providing the best education and training.
He said the experience of USQ, which has seen thousands of nursing graduates from both its on campus and distance learning programs, will provide quality level of education and training to Saudi nurses.
He said the ADI-USQ bridging program in nursing will be conducted in a classroom environment and will start in the next academic year.
While the upgrading of Saudi nurses education and skills is being vigorously pursued, local universities offering medical curricula are also planning to accept male students in their nursing school. The King Faisal University (KFU) in Dammam, according to Dr. Abdulaziz Jamal Al-Saati, vice president of KFU, which already has a nursing school for women, is now discussing plans to have a nursing campus for male students as well.
By Joe Avancena
The Saudi Gazette 2006
