The Saudi Commission for Health Specialties has said that 15,000 foreigners working in the Kingdom's health sector have been barred from practicing for incompetence in their work or holding forged qualifications. While substandard performance accounted for the vast majority of the dismissals, Hussein Al-Fureihi, the Secretary General of the Commission, said 1,093 had obtained employment with forged certificates. According to Al-Fureihi, 336 belonged to nurses, 312 to pharmacists, 160 to dentists and optician technicians, and 75 to doctors. Al-Fureihi disclosed the figures at a forum held on Thursday at the Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce and Industry in which he said that the sources of the forged qualifications were being pursued and that a list of countries producing medical practitioners with forged certificates had been compiled. Most of the workers found in possession of fake qualifications had come from East Asia, Al-Fureihi said. He did not reveal the time period in which the dismissals occurred. Saudi Gazette reported this week an announcement by the Commission that 20 health practitioners at a private hospital in Riyadh had been dismissed for holding forged qualifications or poor performance.
