Comments On Living And Working In Saudi As A Nuse

gorgeous77, LPN, LVN · Sep 12, 2008

hey guys,
good day! i am a registered nurse from the philipines and i am cosidering working in saudi arabia. i know that it is strict there and all. i would lik to ask if:
1. how is the living condition of foreigners there? living conditions are generally good since you get free housing..but it would also depend on the hospital on how nice your accomodations are. people of the same nationality are usually housed together in an apartment and usually you have your own room.the place is also usually fully furnished
2. is there discrimination? how bad? personally i feel there is. westerners get triple the salary of nurses from the indian subcontinents and philippines. even malaysian nurses have higher salaries. some arabs look at filipinos as second class citizens. since there are a lot of filipino dhs there as well, sometimes they treat you as a dh when you're in the hospital.
3. how are girls treated there? girls are also second class citizens..the traditional arabs don't want their women to work..there is no social mingling between the sexes so this makes it more prone for the men to harrass the women.when you go out in public you cannot be with a man who is not your relative, or else the muttawa (religious police) will arrest you for khulwa (being in the company of a man who is not your relative)
4. i heard some of my friends saying that many girls there are being raped/ harassed. is it true? yes. even the men are raped. that is why you have to be very careful. your freedom is curbed there, you will feel like you have no freedom at all to do the things you want to do. again, this depends on the hospital and area in saudi where you'll be working. harassment usually happens because the intermingling of sexes is not allowed. if you ride in a limo (taxi) by yourself, some drivers will harrass you and there have been stories in the newspapers of even saudi women who rode in limos and were raped by the driver (usually indians, pakistanis, some arabs). that is why it is not advisable for a woman to go out alone.
5. any other comments would be highly appreciated.
it really depends where in saudi you'll be working. if in jeddah, good because that's a more open city. riyadh is very strict. when you go out, always wear an abaya, cover your hair. you never know when a muttawa is around because everyone is wearing the same thing. if, and hopefully this will never happen, caught by a muttawa, immediately call your nurse manager to help you. arabs are hard to talk to sometimes. never be caught in public with a man who is not a relative. it doesn't matter if he's the only guy with a group of females, you'll all be arrested if a muttawa wants to. the big malls usuall don't have muttawas.
bring shades, umbrella and sunblock. if you're leaving at this time to around march, bring winter clothes.
the arab patients are very lazy so please stock up on a lot of patience!
but then there are some who are very nice.
one of the perks of working in saudi is that there are no taxes, so what your employer offers you, you usually get in full. shopping is great here. there are lots of discounted branded items. save your money and wait for a sale to come up, they usually slash their prices up to 70% off.
good luck!!
thanks!
ps: please no bias answers and also just the truth..
thanks! big love:heartbeat

you will also be working 12 hours, that's their standard. some filipino nurses will elp you others won't. its usually easy to get along with your co-nurses of different nationalities. there hasn't been much of an isue about this.

love+love · Sep 13, 2008

hi gorgeous77...thanks a lot for the very informative response..

big love!:heartbeat