Jordan keen on hiring Filipino nurses

Despite the global financial crisis that drove countries to hire more locals over foreign workers, hospitals in Jordan were still keen on hiring Filipino nurses, a hospital executive based there said. Amani Abdullah, nursing manager of Al-Essra Hospital in Jordan’s capital Amman, told The Manila Times that Filipino nurses were in demand in his country because of their perseverance and politeness.

“Filipinos are very competent,” he said. “Plus they are always smiling, which is very important in healing, and they always greet and thank people.”

Abdullah, along with other Al-Essra Hospital officials—Dr. Mervat Arar (nursing director) and Khaled Abu-Quraik (nursing unit manager) —visited the Philippines last weekend to recruit nurses in cooperation with the Japan Maruko International Corp., a land-based recruitment agency in Manila.

Arar said that they expect to hire more nurses because Al-Essra Hospital was planning to expand. “We need nurses in the pediatric and intensive care units, among other sections.”

Al-Essra Hospital, he added, was looking for Filipino nurses, preferably those with at least two years experience.

Abdullah explained, “We have few nurses in Jordan. When students from the universities graduate, and considering Islamic traditions, they tend to go abroad with their husbands, so that’s why we have to recruit from outside.”

Application process

Applicants need to pass written and oral examinations, besides the personal interview with Al-Essra Hospital officials in the Philippines.

Once hired, the Filipino nurses will work in Jordan for two years on eight-hour shift everyday and are entitled to 14 days of sick leave and 14 days of vacation leave.

Abdullah said that rights of the Filipino nurses would be protected.

“We understand that every nationality has its own customs and traditions. They [successful applicants will be] free to go to church, and they will not be required to wear veil after work hours,” he added.

“We will tell them that they should always seek our guidance and not do the things that they do not want to do,” he said.

He added that their hospital provides free accommodation and one meal a day to Filipino nurses, plus apartments exclusively for the Filipinos. –Llanesca T. Panti, Reporter, Manila Times