The nursing sector in Iran is currently grappling with intensifying challenges, including staff shortages, high work pressures, and low wages. This has sparked a wave of protests and demands for enhanced professional and living conditions.
Currently, around 220,000 nurses work in Iran’s medical facilities, expressing frustration over insufficient pay and inadequate benefits. Despite approximately 20,000 trained nurses remaining unemployed, authorities have been unable to address staffing shortages, further increasing the workload on active nurses.
Legislation regarding nurses’ rights, such as the right to retirement after twenty years of service, paid annual leave, and increased compensation, remains unimplemented. This neglect of promised rights has only heightened discontent among Iran’s nursing workforce.
Given these difficult circumstances, many nurses are opting to migrate to Gulf countries, Europe, Australia, Canada, and the United States in search of better opportunities. Those who remain in Iran continue to protest daily, garnering significant support from the community. This collective action reflects a strong desire to bring about positive changes in the health system.
On November 2, major protest gatherings were held in the cities of Mashhad and Yazd, where nurses and other medical staff from various hospitals united to voice their demands. Key demands highlighted by the protesters include:
- Implementation of Nursing Services Pricing Law: Establishing a clear law to determine fees for nursing services, especially for pre-hospital emergency care, with financial backing from the Ministry of Health and insurance companies, as these services are currently offered free of charge.
- Increased Compensation for Emergency Nurses: Should an independent compensation package remain unapproved, protesters demand an increase in emergency nurses’ compensation by at least four times the current level, factoring in workload intensity, population density, and challenging work conditions.
- Reduced Retirement Age and Increased Hardship Points: Under the “hard and strenuous” job category, they are demanding a reduction in retirement age for emergency workers, along with an increase in hardship points from 1,500 to 3,000 as previously announced.
- Enhanced Productivity for Emergency Workers: Full application of the Productivity Improvement Law to pre-hospital emergency staff, aligning with its implementation for laboratory and night clinic staff.
- Special Allowance at Triple the Basic Salary: Allocation of a special allowance, amounting to three times the basic salary, for nursing staff from the national budget, to be included in employment contracts.
- Full Implementation of Additional Benefits and Welfare: Enforcing directives for additional benefits and welfare packages for Ministry of Health and emergency staff, without requiring approval from governing boards, in line with other government employees.
- Improvement of National Emergency Organizational Structure: Revamping the organizational structure of the national emergency services and granting broader decision-making powers to pre-hospital emergency managers. Additionally, allocating a separate budget for provincial emergency centers to prevent fund transfers by university boards.
- Dedicated Budget for Ambulance Purchase and Maintenance: Allocating a separate budget for 2025 to acquire new ambulances and maintain the aging fleet, which currently relies on private revenue and sometimes personal funding, putting the lives of medical staff and patients at risk.
- Amending the Nursing System Organization’s Charter: Amending the nursing organization’s charter to allocate at least one seat for emergency nurses on provincial boards and three seats on the national nursing system council.
- Replacement of Ineffective Administrators: Replacing underperforming emergency department managers and their deputies at hospitals and health centers nationwide, as their inefficacy in addressing nurses’ demands has contributed to the accumulation and delay of unresolved issues.
These protests underscore a deep-seated frustration within Iran’s healthcare workforce, particularly amid mounting work pressures and the physically and mentally demanding nature of their jobs. They also highlight a significant gap between healthcare staff and sector leadership, indicating an urgent need to reconsider management policies and structures to ensure efficient and stable operations in the healthcare sector.
