Recruitment of Doctors From Philippines Problems, Causes

Recruitment of Doctors From Philippines

Problems, Causes & Solutions

Process of Hiring and Difficulties faced

Growing Population in Dubai

Mode of Recruitment

Assessment and Approval

Approval from the Ministry

Candidates Backing Out After Completion of Recruitment Procedure

Preference given to Public Hospitals

Strict Regulations by Dubai Government

Feedback Received From Filipino Doctors

Better prospects in developed countries

Lack of Good Education

Major Focus on Nursing

Social and Cultural Differences

Strict Legal Obligations

Language Barriers

Patriotic Feelings for Their Own Country

Lack of Opportunities for Disabled Doctors

This report has been designed as a result of difficulties faced by HR team of ABC while performing recruitment for Filipino doctors in order to fill internal vacant positions. During the course of hiring, we faced several problems in finding the potential candidates. Most of them were caused because of our virtual presence of ABC in Philippines. We failed to contact the potential candidates and our virtual hiring procedure made it rather difficult for us to analyze the determination shown by the candidates. Also, the tests that were provided to these candidates were also subjected to manipulation. Due to these reasons, we opted the practice of contacting professional recruiters and other professional social networking forums which enabled us to reach suitable candidates. As a result of these strategies, we were managed to hire a team of twenty doctors who were legally bonded to stay with us for at least three years. This decision of making the doctors legally bound was taken due to higher turnover rate in ABC's medical staff.

Other than these practices, we also conducted a survey to analyze the possible reasons for lack of interest by Filipino doctors to join ABC and also any other organization in Dubai. Various factors such as racial discrimination, cultural and social differences, language barriers, legal problems etc. were some of the major reasons identified. Through this report recommendations were given to make ABC an employer of choice in Filipino talent as well as other workforce. These recommendations not only focused on making ABC an attractive employer but also were intended to make ABC its contribution in overall industrial structure.

Introduction

Philippines has been a major contributor in the global healthcare industry especially nurses and healthcare assistants. Due to rapid growth of demand, healthcare workers specially doctors and nurses have shown a greater rate of migration in last few years. However, the noticeable fact is the increasing number of availability of Filipino nurses rather than doctors as the global demand has shown a tremendous increase. Because of lack of doctors' availability in Philippines, the internal demand is not being met; similarly hiring Filipino doctors in such scenario is also a difficult task itself. Furthermore, the difference between the cultural, economic and social differences, UAE is lesser preferred destination of the Filipino doctors.

Currently, UAE has shown lowest growth in number of doctors per thousand heads. These statistics are rather dangerous as compared to similar statistics related to United States and UK. With reference to the current statistics, by 2014, in order to match the growth rate of UAE, 13,000 new medical professionals will be required. Due to this demand, UAE needs to have more doctors (Abbas, 2012). "On the back of factors including improving financial stability of the country and emergence of new industrial sectors, besides oil and gas, per head healthcare spending of the country has been increasing incessantly," as per the study conducted by RNCOS.

Where Dubai has been showing a consistent decease in the strength of doctors, the need for having the expatriate medical professionals has increased tremendously. For this purpose, various companies have been focusing on outsourcing workforce from ASEAN countries. Dubai and other UAE countries have been focusing more on development of Oil and gas industry whereas Philippines have been making contribution to global industry of healthcare professionals (Awad & Rola, 2009). Also, domestic workers are also mainly provided by Philippines. Where companies are trying to make the most of this opportunity by filing in this gap in demand and supply, this task is not easy itself because as compared to Filipino nurses, recruitment of Filipino doctors is a different and rather process altogether. Due to hike in global demand of Filipino nurses and doctors, major interest of such health professionals is to migrate to other developed regions such as U.K., U.S. And Canada. Because of difference in culture and job prospects, Dubai is lesser favorite place. Secondly, research has shown that Filipino workers, be it health care or some other industry, have to face more difficulties in terms of legal obligations and regulations as compared to other developed countries. Thirdly, the overall strength of doctors produced by Philippines is already shown in terms of small figures as most of the doctors who have moved abroad have opted for the field of registered nurses instead of practicing their original profession.

This case study is a culminating work which reflects on the difficulties faced while hiring a batch of twenty doctors from Philippines for ABC Company. The main intent for hiring this batch was to have in-house medical team who can workforce at the oil refinery located at (NAME OF THE PLACE) for immediate healthcare in case of emergency, monthly checkups of the workers and saving capital on medical expenses that would have been incurred in terms of medical insurance. This report comprises of three parts. First one will analyze the difficulties faced during the course of hiring; second will reflect on possible reasons for that. Second part will be concerned with the feedbacks given by these doctors on their reluctance of coming over to Dubai. Whereas, third part will be related to recommendations, on how to attract and retain talent in this field.

PART A: Process of Hiring and Difficulties faced

International recruitment is a time-taking complex process which requires thorough analysis and documentation keeping the laws and culture of the targeted country and the host country in consideration. There are various difficulties that are faced while hiring doctors for Dubai which is quite opposite to hiring nurses. Some of the problems faced are mentioned below:

Growing Population in Dubai

Where UAE is a federal state comprising of seven different states, like other neighboring states, Dubai has been a destination for foreign labor. In 1971, the major contribution of increase in population was due to foreign population. As per the statistics of CSD (2008), the share of foreign population in Dubai was calculated to be about 91%. However, it is a disappointing fact that despite this major contribution of foreign population, most of them are found to be related to the field of nursing or domestic assistance. Therefore, the competition in terms of attracting and retaining doctors has given rise to an unnecessary increase in their demands of salaries.

Mode of Recruitment

Our company has used printed media and web portals for attracting such talent. It is a noticeable fact that in the robust world of today, printed media fails to acquire its due attention. And as far as web portals are concerned, the application rate is usually less. Therefore, it was potentially difficult to find out candidates in the relevant field with relevant background.

One cannot stress enough on the importance of having a physical representative or a liaison in a foreign country who can help with attracting and interviewing the candidates. Since we failed to attract sufficient talent on web portals and most of the applications received failed to meet our standards, therefore, there were rejected in the initial phase. At this point, the idea of campus recruitment sounded suitable.

For this purpose, numerous medical schools in Philippines were contacted by our team and they were asked to help us out with this search of potential talent. Unfortunately, the graduations departments or student placement centers were found not be serious enough in this regard. We were mostly provided the data of the students who were undergraduate despite out constant request for details of graduate students. Where two of the universities finally agreed to conduct online campus recruitment session of their graduate students, we found only five students turning up for the interviews. At this point, the importance of physical representative could not be stressed enough.

Other than failure of campus recruitment campaign which resulted in short listing of only two doctors with a year of relevant experience, we also faced barriers in conducting interviews of the applicants who applied through web portals. We conducted interviews of around thirty doctors on Skype; many of them found to have insufficient proficiency on English language. Where majority of the labor at our power plant has the know-how of English language below the desired level, presence of medical examiner speaking foreign language would rather worsen the problem instead of serving its purpose.

Assessment and Approval

The whole recruitment process was conducted by our HR team. Starting from posting ads on websites and newspapers and short listing candidates, the entire procedure was conducting by the HR Manager, Mr. XYZ. However, it is important to know that hiring doctors requires presence of some medical practitioner who can perform interviews and evaluate candidates' proficiency in their own field.

After performing analysis of the candidates IQ and EQ coupled with remarks from HR team, we can understand the candidates were a suitable fit for the organization; however there proficiency level was not judged in this procedure. Therefore, the criteria of being an organization-fit were met but being a "job-fit" was ignored. If we analyze the turnover rate of doctors in our organization in past seven years and the possible reasons related to it, a pattern of a doctor leaving every quarter can be analyzed. The possible reasons given are the failure of communication between the labor, management and the doctors appointed. Also, some of the doctors were let go because in the later phase, they were found incompetent of doing their job. As per the statistics given by our costing department, we incur a cost of hiring a doctor is equivalent to two gross salaries of that respective post. However, hiring every quarter for a vacant position fails to justify its cost.

Thirdly, since the IQ, EQ tests and interviews are conducted online, therefore the transparency of the whole procedure is always comparatively less as compared to physical recruitment. Two candidates who graduated from the same medical school and given the similar time slot for giving tests, showed similar results with no variation at all. Chances of coincidence do exist but examination of past records does show candidates using undue means during the online examination which makes it difficult for us to evaluate their skill level.

In addition to major discrepancies in the whole procedures, difficulties were faced in performing background checks of the shortlisted candidates. Due to virtual presence, most of the medical schools did not responded to our request of showing their affirmation regarding medical affiliations of the shortlisted candidates. Even one candidate managed to send us the forged affirmation. When cross-checked with the management on telecon, receiving any such document was denied by the school management. These hurdles make the background checking a rather difficult task to perform and add to the cost incurred in during recruitment.

Approval from the Ministry

Once the candidate has been shortlisted, approval from foreign ministry has to be taken which is another long procedure itself. Last quarter, the approval for hiring the batch of ten doctors' took two months during which five more doctors left for better prospects and the workforce was left unattended, increasing burden on the existing medical staff. Due to the insufficiency of the medical staff, the company had to incur Dhs. 200,000 in terms of preliminary emergency care in a single quarter.

Also, the continuous approvals from foreign ministry add to the cost of recruitment, in terms of registrations and other supplementary procedures. Where the whole recruitment process has been performed, rejection of candidates by Foreign Ministry is another factor which raises question marks on the effectiveness of the whole cycle. In past two quarters, request for hiring doctors was sent twice. Out of twenty-eight candidates, ten were rejected on the basis of non-approval from the ministry.

This particular step tends to increase the overall length of the entire cycle. Common HR practices in our industry entail the recruitment cycle to be constituted of forty five days however due to increase the required documentation and rather strict regulations. Length of hiring procedure has been increasing every quarter. Secondly, extra strict regulations have made it quite difficult for us to attract and retain the talent. Furthermore, Philippines have also showed a possibility of banning several countries including UAE from hiring local talent. This is a result of failure to comply with article 10222 which ensures the protection and safeguard of Filipino workers working abroad. However, due to numerous complains of maltreatment, the possibility for this ban always exists and Filipino doctors considering this possibility tend to opt for other western countries rather than UAE.

Candidates Backing Out After Completion of Recruitment Procedure

During last two cycles of recruitment, it was observed that 40% of the candidates backed out after going through the preliminary screening phase, approval and then after receiving approval from the Foreign Ministry. When the reasons for such behavior were observed, it turned out that most of the candidates were applying simultaneously in various organizations and after getting shortlisted from more than one, they tend to have a liberty of selection. Most of the doctors try to make the best out of this situation and accept the most lucrative offer. Some of the doctors were also found of having offers from U.S. And UK and they opted for them because of lesser social and cultural barriers.

Our recruitment process fails to ensure that the level of seriousness and commitment shown by the candidate as it is rather easy to appear in a telephonic interview or a visual chat over Skype and the body language tends to differ as well as compared to the actual physical interviews. Also, we do not have any policies to ensure that after short listing and placement of offer, the candidate remains committed to us till the time approval from ministry has been received. In some cases, candidates who have received offers from us have utilized them to acquire better jobs.

As a result of this inevitable situation, the cost of recruitment of doctors every year increases by thirty five percent as compared to the standard cost computed by the Accounts team.

In some cases, shortlisted candidates have also approached us for issuing visas for their spouses or at least one family member. Since, hiring of doctors from Philippines is rather time taking and expensive as well; therefore in certain cases we have to accept these conditions. For example, last quarter, a senior doctor was hired as Chief Medical Examiner and the company had to issue visa for his immediate family as the position required to be filled urgently.

These unforeseen events after completion of recruitment tend to make this whole procedure rather laborious.

Preference given to Public Hospitals

The health system of UAE comprises of three main pillars: Health Authority of Abu Dhabi (HAAD) for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) for the Emirate of Dubai and the federal Ministry of Health for the other five emirates. Out of these, DHA is capable of providing concrete data on its human resources and various interview conducted by our HR team for analyzing the possible reasons of reluctance shown by the Filipino doctors in migrating to Dubai.

In Dubai, public hospitals are more preferred by the Filipino doctors due to higher remuneration. In 2008, Rashid Hospital, Dubai Hospital, and Al Wasl Hospital - and 16 health centers under the DHA, which employed 1,339 doctors (of which 868 were foreigners) and 3,647 nurses (3,549 foreigners) in 2008. In the private sector, there were 18 private hospitals and numerous clinics, which employed 2,888 doctors (2,777 foreigners) and 4,281 nurses (all foreigners) (DHA 2008).

As Ferris Lay (2010), puts it, due to better financial incentives, job security, and working environment, public health service organizations are more preferred as compared to the private ones. Figure 1 illustrates the increment in foreign workforce in administrative and health services during 1993-2008. The major hike can be observed specifically after 2008. Due to higher number of candidates willing to join public hospitals, major skilled workforces apply there and the applications received by us seem to be insufficient in fulfilling our needs. Due to = candidates choices, private organizations are lesser preferred employers.

Strict Regulations by Dubai Government

It is a common perception that private companies tend to exploit their Filipino labor. The most important tool causing this situation is the sponsorship system of Dubai called Kafala. Under this system the employers companies tend to apply at Ministry of labor as the sponsor of their foreign workforce. Since, it is difficult for foreign workers to obtain their own residence in Dubai; therefore they tend to become dependent on these private companies in this regard as well. Lack of support from the employer means no permit to work in Dubai. Due to this, private companies tend to exert undue influence on their foreign employers leading to maltreatment. Due to constant complains received, the Filipino skilled labor appears to be reluctant to join companies in Dubai.

Due to lower labor cost and complete chances of exploitation, private sector has shown major preference to skilled labor from Philippines and other MENA countries. In order to sustain balance in local and foreign workforce, the general immigration policies have been mad strict time and again. Since our virtual recruitment process has failed to provide us with complete proficiency and effectiveness, therefore we tried to opt for print media in order to hire talent that was already present in Dubai market. However after thorough evaluation, it was observed that free talent in Dubai market from the desired talent is rather difficult to find.

The main causes for this difficulty were over-complicated regulations of the Dubai government. Initially, in 2003, a restriction of paying a guarantee of Dhms, 2000 was imposed. The said amount was said to be paid by the sponsor relative who would ensure that the relative being sponsor is only present in Dubai for visit purposes. Since this policy proved insufficient in striking a balance between local and foreign workforce, in 2004, a minimum salary clause was added into restrictions. This clause ensured that the sponsor has to have at least Dhm. 5000 as a permanent salary. Other regulations like these ensured that the talent prevailing in Dubai market is recruited already before stepping into this country. Hence, our attempt of using local newspapers also failed to provide the desired results.

However, in order to retain only committed talent, we decided to use few Filipino newspapers as well. Total of five newspapers having major circulations in desired districts were contacted and shared with the ad to post. The cost of posting ad was considerably high for unknown reasons. There were also no means available locally to evaluate the reasons. Due to lack of market intelligence, Advertisements were posted in the regions where major medical schools were not situated. Therefore, due to failure in identifying the demographics, the first attempt of posting Advertisement was failed.

Further research performed in this regard helped the HR team to analyze the targeted cities where reputed medical schools were located and the Advertisements were reposted. Furthermore, social networking websites such as LinkedIn and twitter were used to spread the word about our current requirement. Also, various head hunters and other professional recruitment agencies were conducted in Manila, Philippines to help us identify the right talent.

This change in strategy helped us identify and reach our targeted audience. Since LinkedIn is a massive social networking website only joined by genuine professionals therefore we received quality profiles from there with genuine intent. Also, contacting professional recruiters in Manila was a strategically effective decision as the recruiters would have been only paid if we were satisfied with the quality of candidates referred by them. This decision helped us overcome the barrier of physical presence. Also most of the documentation was performed by them which reduced our burden to a great deal.

Due to these collective measures, we were able to hire a team of twenty doctors for our power plant.

PART B: Feedback Received From Filipino Doctors

Due to this rather unpleasant experience, we conducted a survey in order to find the possible reasons for reluctance shown by Filipino doctors in getting hired in Dubai. The targeted audience was the local residents working in private and public hospitals. Also, the interviewees were made to answer several survey questions in order to obtain complete clarity in terms of output. As per the feedback shared by these doctors, we identified following feedback:

Better prospects in developed countries

As per the interviewees conducted, the major reason for reluctance of doctors coming over to Dubai is the presence of better and promising future in other developed countries. U.S., UK and KSA have appeared to be major markets of Filipino talent where they are provided with better remuneration, work conditions and other facilities. In some circumstances, employers offer to sponsor the families as well. Further, discrimination shown to Filipino workers is comparatively less as compared to UAE.

Main reasons of such situation are the presence of Filipino community in U.S. And UK for a considerable time. Since these communities have been residing in developed countries for several decades, therefore, the social structure of developed countries have made the original residents to accept them as part of their society. Furthermore, in Dubai, Filipinos are perceived to housemaids or a domestic worker which fails to provide them the desired level dignity and respect (Sabban, 2004).

On the other hand, the tradition of keeping domestic assistants is rather scarce. Similarly, all the fields of the society, be it corporate world, healthcare or educations, many professionals from MENA countries are operational. Since there is no discrimination exercised on the racial grounds, therefore the working conditions tend to be better for Filipinos in U.S. And UK. These work conditions have proved to be so lucrative that many doctors who have recently moved to U.S. And UK have changed their respective fields from medical professional to registered nurse as the nurses are in more demand in these regions.

One doesn't agree to the fact that these workers do not face any exploitation in these countries however the ratio is considerably low as compared to Dubai and other UAE-based countries. One more interesting fact that has been observed is the perception of Dubai as an intermediary ground between Philippines and other developed countries. Most of the doctors tend to target UK, U.S. As their final destination and perceive Dubai as an intermediary which helps them to have better profile as a candidate and have a better job later.

Lack of Good Education

As per our analysis, outcomes of the survey and other sources, we have analyzed that where Philippines has been acting as a major manpower provider, the quality of its sources has been showing a decline. Where there is a major demand for Filipino health workers globally, in order to meet this demand, a huge mass of nurses has been produced, neglecting the need for doctors. Since major diversion has been towards nursing education, major medicine schools have been closed down in Manila and other major districts.

Unfortunately, due to this closure, doctors are being produced by the institutions incapable of meeting the international standards. Hence, major strength of doctors who graduated before 2008, has been already employed and a greater strength of those who graduated post 2008, have shown lack of desired skills in their respective fields. Hence. Hiring them fails to meet the requirement of their organization. As per the interviews conducted, it was the lack of planning by the Philippines government which has resulted into major deficit in this field. As of now, the ninety percent of the brain drain from Manila is in the field of nursing as the doctors fail to meet the required standards of the prospective employers.

Therefore, after some time, the only option left for these doctors is to opt the field of nursing as it is the most lucrative field at the moment and will continue to remain so for coming four years.

Major Focus on Nursing

Dubai has been a major market for nurses since past few decades. The multi-step migration behavior model of these nurses is a researchable subject itself. Dubai mainly acts as a transit point for these nurses and their required destinations. This transit not only helps them sustain a financial stability required for new career prospects but also helps them in getting recruited in the desired company by building up a better resume. Such mannerism reflects the responsiveness of the subjects (migrants) to fickle hiring, employment and immigration regulations of the targeted company and the abundance of similar talent and high unemployment rate in the country of origin. However, this behavioral change may not be active in the time of leaving the host country. For this purpose, several questions were asked by the nurses and doctors residing in Dubai. Some of these questions were: 1) why choosing nursing as their targeted career, 2) Is Dubai their final destination, 3) what makes them stay in Dubai and if decided to leave 4) what's the next preferred location.

For this purpose, a questionnaire was drafted by our team and was randomly distributed among fifty nurses in public as well as private hospitals. In response to our survey which was later on followed by few interviews as well, it was observed that the ease found in the recruitment policies in Dubai and the ease of deployment because of nearest vicinity is one of the major causes of Dubai as a premium selection by nurses. However, this is just a transit phase for these nurses and the next desired location would be UK, Australia or Singapore. Furthermore, it was noticed that nursing was considered as the most suitable profession and the greater number of migrants were female belonging to all kind of age segments (El-Haddad, 2006).

However, it was mentioned by some of the nurses that they are still subjected to discrimination at the work place. Same feedback was received by them regarding Filipino doctors as well. As per the survey results, local residents are the ones with most lucrative remuneration packages topped up with many perks and benefits. These residents are also provided with greater chances of career progression as well. Next number is of nurses from other developed countries who are comparatively very small in number. Then comes the turn of Filipino nurses who are always competing with Indian and Pakistanis for better growth and career prospects.

As per the survey results, the tax-free nature of nurses' income enables them to have take-home pay higher than other MENA and UAE countries. Nurses working in private sector tend to have a preliminary salary of USD 1500-1600 which is fairly higher than any other sector. And nurses with prior experience and license start with USD 2100 in the starting phase. This shows a substantial increase in their income as compared to working in home country and other MENA and UAE countries where income is taxable. Considering this income bracket, being a nurse appears to be substantially profitable where becoming doctor does not offer such lucrative options.

Further analysis of questionnaire distributed revealed that substantial career growth, becoming a professional nurse in a comparatively lesser time and opportunity to work with sophisticated health care technology act as a strong motivational factors for Filipino health care students to opt for nursing and practice it in Dubai. This trend is rather contradictory to Japan, U.S., UK and Singapore who required licensed Filipino nurses to take internal exam before being allowed working as a registered nurse. This ease of practice made Dubai a preferred place for work. Uy (2008) also reports that one of the incentives for many Filipino nurses to go to Middle East is to obtain professional working experiences in better-equipped hospitals, as part of their preparation to go to U.S. Or Europe (Lorenzo, 2007).

The case study conducted in UK entails the details of migration policies of United Kingdom and the requisites of health sector here. The report explained how priorities of Filipino nurses have changed over the period and this changed paradigm has lead to a uniform pattern of moving to Dubai or other UAE countries before actually applying here. Moreover, it was learned that in addition to the accumulation of human and financial capital and the development of social network in UK, obtaining UK citizenship is considered by nurses as a substantial reason to consider UK as a "stepping stone" to the next destination.

Despite the discrimination faced in the work life, Dubai has been the preferred destinations of these nurses as it not only helps them acquire financial stability but also make them a preferred employee for developed countries. Ease of getting a job, growth rate, and active demand has made Filipino nurses reside in Dubai as soon as they can.

Social and Cultural Differences

Another major reason for Filipino doctors to work in Dubai or any other UAE country is rather strict cultural and social differences. To start with the social differences, Arab society is mainly based on Empire system where the concepts of servants and slaves are still very strong. Filipino maids form the major percentage of domestic workers. Where Arabs have Filipinos as their servants, getting a treatment from a similar breed turns out to rather unacceptable for them. Instances have been recorded where Filipino doctors have had to face harsh talks, maltreatment, physical abuse etc. due to this racist factor while working in Public as well as Private hospitals. Secondly, their proficiency has been questioned time and again as Arabs tend to find it rather difficult accepts someone from a lower race to have high qualification.

Secondly, cultural factors also play an important role in this decision. Culture of Philippines and Dubai are rather opposite to each other. Religious forces are the major determinants of cultural drive in Dubai. Islam being the dominant religion or state religion, most of the regulations is governed by it which is also reflected in the life styles of Arabs. Veil, abayas, separate hospitals, spaces in mosques are some of the traits of Muslim culture. On the other hand, Philippines have no state relation. It is a secular state where all have been given the right to exercise their religion freely, by law. Although Muslim forces are dominant which makes the basic Islamic values being the base of Filipino society however male-female interaction is not a taboo and dress code is certainly opposite to what local residents have in Dubai. One cannot say that Filipinos are forced to adopt the dress code, however level of acceptance does decreases when the discriminatory forces come into action. Hence, these cultural, religious and social differences make Dubai a least favorite place for the doctors.

Strict Legal Obligations

Recently, a lot of hype has been created regarding maltreatment of Filipinos in the name of law. Some of the interviewees mentioned the stories where they were mistreated by the regulatory authorities or their relatives had to suffer because of extra strict regulations. Despite the regular documents, some of the interviewees were asked show their other belongings as well and were asked personal questions regarding their relations with the sponsors. Recently, Philippines have started a new offloading policy which has made travelling to Dubai a rather embarrassing process.

Tedious waiting hours in the name of needless documents required by Dubai as well as Philippines consulate have made the workforce rather reluctant to come over to Dubai for better prospects after gaining such higher education. Although measures have been taken to adopt new technology at Filipino Consulate in Dubai but things haven't got better yet. Other legal formalities like having a Kafeel (sponsor), payments of major amounts in the names of guarantees not only give the employers an opportunity to exploit these doctors but also puts unnecessary financial burden on these doctors who are willing to or are already working there.

In addition to that, authorities in Philippines as well as Dubai have further made their scrutiny stricter. These restrictions affect those who initially visited UAE on visit visa, came back to Manila and then left again for UAE. It's another labor to find an employment in Dubai, and then come back only to know that all the efforts have turned out to be futile. In order to avoid this hassle, Filipino doctors tend to search for jobs in Dubai through other mediums which are far less effective in reaching out potential employers. Where these laws are getting more stringent day by day, increasing insurance, placement costs, agency fee for finding employers tend to put these doctors into many scams (Agunius, 2010).

Due to the strict obligations, illegal fixers also try to take advantage of these local professionals without offering substantial results. On the other hand, media has been rather active portraying horror stories regarding abuse of Filipino nurses and housemaids by their employers. Increasing complaints especially by house maids have created a heat in Filipino doctors against serving local Arabs. Therefore, they would rather prefer to move to some other developed country than Dubai for Employment.

Language Barriers

Language is one of the pre-requisite that has to be satisfied duly before landing into foreign lands. Language differences are one of the most common reasons for reluctance of Filipino doctors to work in Dubai. This deficiency works in both ways. The current education system of Philippines does makes the students to have technical knowledge however doesn't invest much in their personal grooming and making them capable of operating in foreign countries.

Where English is the global language, most of the Filipino doctors were found to have less than desired language skills in written as well as oral aspects. Therefore, their selection by the prospective employers does become substantially difficult. Secondly, even in case they get hired, regular conversations and written demonstrations become a tedious task in itself, hampering their chances of growth. Due to these factors, such Filipino doctors chose to move to other countries such as Japan, Singapore etc. And other ASEAN countries rather than Middle East and MENA countries.

If the scenario is observed the other way round, many of Arabic patients tend to lack the basic know-how of English language which creates more difficulties for Filipino doctors to treat them. And there have been instances, where due to miscommunication; Filipino doctors had to face the sentence in prison. Due to these factors, Filipino doctors either opt for jobs where local translator is available or decide not to accept the job at all. The major factor for Filipino doctors to work abroad is their long history of Diaspora. However, failure to have a basic communication has forced these talented individual to stay in their home towns only.

Patriotic Feelings for Their Own Country

During the interviews, it was also observed that some of the candidates who were contacted by head hunters were willing to work as online medical transcriptionists but were unwilling to move away from their homeland. The reason for doing so was the patriotic feelings for their own country. Where major talent has been moving out of Philippines, there are still some left who are willing to serve their homeland.

As an answer to increasing brain drain from the country, even Philippines is now facing shortage of medical professionals. Therefore, pay structure and other perks and benefits have been restructured in a lucrative manner which may not be as appealing as those in UAE however are sufficient enough to retain them without getting away from their family and country. Filipino ministry of health has been stressing a lot lately on having the local talent retained in their own country. This gives the undergraduate doctors a hope to have better future in their own country which affects their paradigm of shifting to other countries in future. This is the reason why Philippines has shown greater rate of migration by nurses rather than doctors in last two years.

Lack of Opportunities for Disabled Doctors

During the survey, there were various Filipino doctors and other healthcare workers identified who had the suitable credentials for their jobs but they could not apply to the jobs available in Dubai. Dubai's life style and organizational culture tends to show little tolerance for those with physical disabilities. Therefore, instead of trying to make them part of the mainstream professionals, they are forced to be left out. Various candidates were interviewed who had applied for various vacancies in Dubai but were never shortlisted because of their physical illness. Due to this reason, potential candidates either never apply for the positions available or even if they do, are never shortlisted.