By Jubin Katiraie
Nurses across Iran have been holding protests against poor living conditions, despite the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, which shows you how serious the situation is.
In Tehran, nurses from various hospitals across the capital held rallies on Tuesday over their extremely low wages set out by the Health Ministry for their work during the pandemic.
Protesters cited a recent Health Ministry statement issued to all hospitals, active treatment facilities, and other medical centers that have active COVID-19 cases that medical staff members employed there will, until further notice, will receive these bonuses:
- Specialists physicians – 800,000 rials per hour
- General physicians – 500,000 rials per hour
- Assistants – 400,000 rials per hour
- Active interns – 250,000 rials per hour
- Personnel – 150,000 per hour
While in Yasuj on Tuesday, nurses held a rally outside the city governor’s office to demand answers to issues that they have been raising for a long time and call out officials at Yasuj Medical Sciences University for refusing to hire them at the end of their contracts.
They held signs saying, “Our sacrifice should not end in us losing our jobs” and “We defeated coronavirus and now we’re unemployed”
Nurses were not the only sector of society out protesting on Tuesday.
Municipal workers from the Kot Abdullah district of Ahvaz held a protest outside the governor’s office in Khuzestan province over their wages and insurance having not been paid for three months.
While teachers at the Khuzestan Literacy Movement gathered in front of the provincial Education Department to demand a change in their employment status from contract workers to substitute teachers, which would mean higher wages and more benefits. They said they have been demanding changes to their salaries for two years, but no one has been listening to them.
In various parts of Iran, residents are complaining about the mulching measures used by the regime to supposedly prevent dust storms. They say that this cheap method of tacking the problem has left poor locals with nowhere to feed their livestock because it completely destroyed large areas of grass and plants. This will lead to livestock becoming ill and even dying, which will be very expensive and heart-wrenching for the local people to deal with.
Locals even report that many farm fields have been destroyed by Iranian authorities as a result of extensive mulching, which is another threat to food security and the local environment in southern Iran.
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