DOHA: The Supreme Council of Health (SCH) has decided to issue temporary licences to newly recruited nurses to work in public and private healthcare facilities in the country.
This move is expected to help facilities that are hit by a shortage of medical staff due to procedural delays in obtaining permanent licences.
The provisional licences will be valid for a maximum period of three months or until the final verification report as part of the licensing process is out, according to a circular issued by the Qatar Council of Healthcare Practitioners (QCHP).
A senior QCHP official said yesterday that this is a pilot project covering nurses and could be expanded to other professions in future, depending on how it works.
“It is an adjustment to facilities but also a very safe option for us. It will help them speed up their process significantly,” QCHP’s Acting CEO Dr Jamal Rashid Al Khanji told this daily yesterday.
He said nurses are included in the pilot phase because they represent the biggest number of healthcare practitioners in the country.
“Nurses always work as part of a team and are under supervision. Because they are the biggest group of practitioners we know exactly what is required to license them and have a lot of experience in managing their issues,” said
Al Khanji.
“There are many safety nets to their licensing processes. So we know that this step will be very safe and have a positive effect and remember we are not removing or changing anything,” he added.
To obtain a temporary licence, nurses have to complete all the normal licensing procedures. They have to submit their documents for verification and sit for the qualifying examination. The provisional licence will be granted after successfully completing the evaluation process. They will be able to start enrolling in their facilities under supervision till their verification is out.
“We are encouraged to do this because failures in verification fell down dramatically to 3.5 recently. And 99 percent of the failures are due to false work experience certificates that do not meet the Qatari requirements,” said
Al Khanji.
“We rarely see forged undergraduate or post graduate certificates anymore,” he added.
In case of negative verification reports and proven incidents of fraud, the licence will be suspended and the practitioner will be banned from working in Qatar. The case will be referred to the Permanent Licensing Committee (PLC) at SCH for blacklisting procedures, warned the circular.
Asked about the alleged delays in issuance of permanent licences to healthcare practitioners, Al Khanji said, “We always tell facilities to do verification and testing before they bring practitioners to Qatar. It is easy and possible. But they rarely do that. They make it harder and more expensive for themselves.”
The Peninsula
