500 Doubtful Degrees, pushed the "Specialties" to cooperate with an international company.

JUL 20, 2008

Prof. Hussein Al Freihi Secretary General Saudi Commission for Health Specialties, declared the existence of a new list of doubtful degrees, including 500 persons, and this came, yesterday morning, during the signature of an agreement with an international company specialized in the identification of forged degrees, and which was followed by a press conference

Prof. Al Freihi stated that the reasons behind this agreement are the new list of the doubtful degrees and to save the time required to identify the forged ones. It is also due to the vigilance of the commission to secure the medical practice in the kingdom, to improve the medical performance and develop it. The degree verification of the health practitioners and the detection of the forgers among the health professions, are part of the functions the commission was established for.

Prof. Al Freihi confirmed that singing the agreement would increase the percentage of detection of forged degrees to 100%, whereas, the commission employees identified 720 forged Degrees in the past 10 years.

Al Freihi, clarified that the company follows 3 steps to verify the authenticity of the degrees, through the cross check of the degrees details with the passport, checking the degree holder details in the company's database, which includes the data of 280 Million forgers worldwide, and finally contacting the issuing authority of the degree.

Prof. Al Freihi mentioned that the company has good connections in 180 countries, and part of the articles of the agreement with the company, is to obtain the result in a period of 35 days maximum. After that and until 60 days, the fee will be reduced to 50%, and after the 60 days, the company will do the verification free.

He added during the press conference, held after the signature of the agreement, that "some arrivals, fraud their countries' systems, which forbid them to leave to work as doctors overseas. They enter the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with sheepherder, plumbers, or other artisan professions visas, while their true profession is medicine. They seek traveling to the kingdom with other visas then their profession, until they become able to work as doctors, by amending their profession, but their number is very low. Moreover, we insure the public that no one will be allowed to practice before the completion of the profession amendment in the embassy of the country of origin and from the concerned authorities".

Prof. Al Freihi pointed that the commission constantly and intensively trains the employees of the documents management department, in order to enable them to identify the forged degrees. The commission also possesses developed devices to detect the forgeries, and processes to discover the individuals tricking it or other governmental authorities, by trying to enter the Kingdom using a fake passport after their exit.

* Translated and Reproduced with permission from Saudi Research and Publishing Company