Saudi Nursing, Past Present & Future



Saudi Nursing, Past Present & Future

Introduction

The Saudi health care system subjected to rapid growth and development from over the last two decades. With the advancements and modernization of the technology, the implementation of better healthcare services is apparent. This has led to massive progression in the field of healthcare. The nursing professionals are the pillars of the healthcare system. The Saudi healthcare system realized the need and paid special attention to the development of the profession with recruitment of advanced and registered nurse practitioners in its healthcare organizations.

This document has taken the nursing profession as its central focus and discussed the past and present nursing practice. The job also discusses the future of the Saudi nursing, by observing the current factors and growth.

Discussion

Saudi Nursing

Since the establishment of the first hospital in 1950, the healthcare professional development is in a cycle of continuous improvement in Saudi Arabia. With this development, the development of nursing career has also been growing. The simulation in nursing education has played a great role in improving the professional nursing practice, and increasing the nursing graduates in the state. In order to understand the recent developments and future implications of the nursing profession in Saudi Arabia, it is necessary to start it the history of the profession.

The history of the Saudi Nursing

From the viewpoint of Islamic history, the profession of nursing days back to the time of Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H). In that time, the nursing profession existed in its initial indistinctive form, called the midwives. These women accompanied the soldiers on wars and took care of their injuries and diseases. As the research indicates, the nursing profession given recognition for the first time on a significant level by a Muslim nurse named Rufaidah Al-Asalmiya. She is the Florence nightingale of the Arab world, putting all her efforts to establish the first nursing school in Arab, and, therefore, considered as the legend of Arab nursing profession (Miller-Rosser, Chapman, Francis, 2006).

With the advent of the modern era, the profession kept improving, till 1949, when a team of medical professionals planned to establish the first medical centre in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The nurses of the past worked with low health care services provision, limited knowledge, and at a level that did not hold national recognition. The nursing education institutions were not well established, and the significant problems were the availability of faculty members. The government decided to hire more foreigner nursing professionals. It was done to overcome the rising needs of the population of Saudi Arabia (Almalki, 2011)

The major setback of hiring the expatriate nurses was notices when the gulf war began, and most of these foreign nurses started resigning and returning to their respective countries. The situation developed extreme crisis as the dependence on these foreign nurses was extremely high (Tumulty, 2001). It was then the Saudi government realized that the need of their own nurse graduates is an alarming necessity.

The Development and the Present Practice

The massive developments in the healthcare system ...