2,000 female nurses needed in Saudi

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration advised Filipino nurses to apply to Saudi Arabia, as the foreign country's Ministry of Health recently announced it is in need of 2,000 female nurses to include Muslim nurses to work in the government hospital there.

The POEA said that the Saudi government is accepting applicants, with or without hospital work experience, as long as they are Bachelor of Science in Nursing graduates with board license. Muslim nurses who have not taken the board exams are however accepted, the POEA clarified.

Interested nurses are advised to prepare a detailed resumé with job description along with the requirements - six pieces of 2x2 ID pictures, photocopies of college diploma, board certificate rating and Professional Regulations Commission ID, and employment certificate. These should be personally submitted to the Manpower Registry Division, Window M, Ground Floor, Blas Ople building (formerly POEA Building), along Ortigas Avenue corner EDSA in Mandaluyong City.

The POEA advised the interested applicants to submit their application not later than February 10.

Meanwhile, the Department of Labor and Employment clarified that the training requirement under the new policy in the deployment of household workers abroad is not mandatory for all outbound domestic helpers.

The labor department said that some groups are only using the scheme as way of extorting money from the workers.

DOLE issued the advisory amid reports on some recruitment groups requiring training and testing requirement, as included in the package of reforms for the household service workers.

In the advisory, Labor and Employment Secretary Arturo Brion clarified that a worker who has previous and extensive experience as a domestic helper, either locally or abroad, may opt to go directly for assessment to any accredited assessment centers of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.

Brion said that the training becomes mandatory only when one fails the trade testing three times.

The labor chief cited in particular the support of no less than the International Labor Organization to the government's new policies aimed at better protecting DHs, consistent with the body's Decent Work program.

"The global Decent Work program of the ILO is being pioneered by the Philippines," he said, adding that, "our efforts are also aligned with ILO Convention No. 181, which is against charging, either directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, any fees or costs to workers." - Wenna A. Berondo