BISHA: The Filipina nurse ordered by a court in Bisha to repay SR720,000 to a trader in Sawa prepaid mobile telephone cards has been imprisoned for four months after failing to produce the sum by the court-ordered deadline. The physiotherapist employed at King Abdullah Hospital in Bisha was taken into custody at the beginning of last week after being allowed to return to work and try and raise the money owed. The woman said that she became involved in the joint sale of telephone cards with a fellow Filipina nurse who was responsible for collecting monies owed by clients but who was later diagnosed with a serious illness and interned at King Abdullah Hospital. She said that she herself found it difficult to collect monies owed to the pair and that some clients left the country without paying. “I came to the Kingdom eight years ago and worked for two months in Al-Hofouf before transferring to Bisha,” she told Okaz/Saudi Gazette last month. “I was a Christian, but then embraced Islam five years ago. I started selling telephone cards through my friend, a nurse at the same hospital, and we would get the cards from the source and sell them on to clients on credit. At the end of the month we'd collect the money from the people that owed it to us.” She said that some people “cheated her” and returned to the Philippines without paying. “They don't answer my calls, but I will take them to court when I go back,” she said. “Some people are still paying back what they owe me, but I still owe more than SR700,000. Family and friends in the Philippines, Australia and Canada are trying to get money together to help me.”
