ISLAMABAD: Pakistani doctors working in Saudi Arabia have neither been sacked nor their accreditation has been questioned, officials said in response to rumors of mass layoffs.

Most of the issues raised by Pakistani medical professionals have been resolved, Pakistani Ambassador Raja Ali Ejaz told Arab News over the phone from Riyadh on Wednesday.

“The matter of Pakistani doctors is in our notice. The mission has held multiple meetings with the management of the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties (SCFHS). Most of the current issues raised by our medical professionals have been resolved,” he said, adding that the SCHFS has encouraged anyone facing problems to approach the commission individually, through a dedicated online portal.

In August, media reports unsettled medical professionals by claiming that Pakistan-awarded master’s in surgery and doctor of medicine degrees would no longer be recognized in the Kingdom.

The reports followed an update in the SCHFS’s classification and registration of medical practitioners, which since 2018 divides them into three levels.

The first level is for medicine graduates from countries such as Australia, Ireland, Canada, the UK, and the US. The second level includes Scandinavian and some other European countries, certain Middle Eastern countries, South Africa, as well as Pakistan and India. The third level includes degree-holders from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Jordan, Russia, and Romania.

Pakistani Health Ministry’s director general Dr. Asad Hafeez told Arab News that it is totally fake news that Saudi Arabia had banned Pakistani doctors. Some physicians had been fired, but it was a separate case.

“This is an isolated issue and we have approached the Saudi government through the Foreign Office to check that how many doctors got affected, which were not many, only a single figure. We are in contact with them to solve the issue,” Hafeez said, adding that hundreds of Pakistani doctors are working in the Kingdom and more will join them.

Every country, including Pakistan, has its own medical regulators that oversee its health care and medical practice, explaining that in 2018 Saudi Arabia introduced the levels system, which places Pakistani degrees in tier two.

“Pakistani doctors are serving in Saudi Arabia in different capacities, like senior consultants, specialists, and fresh graduates. The Pakistani government is consistently doing efforts to improve utilization of its manpower in Saudi Arabia on better terms,” Hafeez said.

The president of Pakistan Doctors Group (PDG) in Saudi Arabia, Dr. Asad Ullah Roomi, who is a consultant cardiologist at the Prince Sultan Military Medical City hospital in Riyadh, told Arab News over the phone that the issue was complete misinformation, as Pakistani doctors have been working in the Kingdom without any problems.

“The issue related to the degrees of Pakistani doctors in Saudi Arabia has been totally misreported and wrongly portrayed in the media,” Roomi said, adding that Saudis gave a lot of respect to Pakistani medical professionals.

“I’ve been serving here for the past 18 years, facing no problems. There are more than 1,200 Pakistani doctors working with dignity in the Riyadh region alone,” he said, explaining that the accreditation issue which made headlines was related to four doctors whose credentials were not verified by their parent universities in Pakistan.

“SCFHS is a very strong institution in Saudi Arabia with a very advanced and strict system of credentials verification. They are very open and cooperative. Every doctor has his own login and email through which they can contact the Saudi council directly if there are any issues,” Roomi said.