Being a Nurse in KSA

      I've never even imagined being a nurse, let alone a nurse in Saudi Arabia. My book, the Arabic version, has been published in Saudi Arabia. Is it roughly the same as nursing jobs in Saudi and Indonesia? Based on my experience before working in Saudi Arabia, I have worked in Indonesia. 

However, I have been placed in primary health with different placements, first in a hospital and then working in Saudi Arabia. More precisely, like a community health center in Indonesia, care has slight differences but many similarities between PHCs and community health centers in Indonesia.

      When you start working in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else, you must adapt to many things, such as culture, food, environment, and work. Even though, in general, the work of nurses is the same, there is a lot we have to learn, especially languages, namely Arabic and English.

      It's not easy. Someone says every beginning is difficult, so go through the process. Like it or not, you have to learn; sometimes, I think that when I was at school or college, I was too lazy to study, but even when I started working, I needed to learn skills. Our knowledge may be basic because we have at least two years of work experience in Saudi. 

Still, English and Arabic had to be learned in those two languages, which I don't know, but I had to learn more in-depth about those two languages. But for my fellow nurses who now want to work in Saudi because, coincidentally, there are a lot of nurses and midwives working in Saudi now, don't be discouraged; just because you can't or aren't good at these two languages, we can apply learning by doing.

      One of our motivations for why working in Saudi is the right choice is the affordable cost of living, no income tax for nurses until now, whether they work in the government or private sector, the population is Muslim, so we don't have difficulty finding a place Worship and food are guaranteed to be halal, you can perform Hajj and Umrah for those of us who are Muslims.

      So, usually, Indonesian nurses are placed anywhere; based on my experience and observations, some Indonesian nurses are placed under the Ministry of Health, KSA, who are then placed in PHCs or hospitals, in the Ministry of Social Affairs, who are usually placed in rehabilitation centers, or in the Ministry of Defense which is generally in military hospitals, or even in the Ministry of Education, well that's all if we are placed in the government sector, but some Indonesian nurses are placed in private settings such as dental clinics, beauty clinics, private hospitals, home care, dialysis center etc.

      Apart from what I have mentioned above, another advantage when we work in the Middle East is that the primary and first advantage is that the salary is much greater than working in our country; it can be five times the wage in Indonesia. However, the salary is not the same as that of Indonesian nurses. 

Which is the same; for example, those of us who work in the government and private sector are automatically different, our fellow privates are also other, and our degrees, for instance, between diploma and BSN nurses, are also distinct from the basic salary, not to mention if we have just arrived, there is a pyrometric exam to get the Saudi council, of which there are several Level also influences the salary we receive.