NCRI – Hundreds of Iranian nurses held a gathering on Sunday outside Hassan Rouhani’s office in Tehran to protest low salaries and difficult working conditions.
The group of 700 nurses also renewed their long demand for the implementation of the ‘Nursing Tariff Act’ that had been ratified in 2007 which limits the amount of overtime nurses can work, among other benefits.
Nurses, who came from various cities across Iran to Tehran, said large groups of nurses in their cities were distracted from attending the protest after a state institution contacted their hospitals.
The hospitals in Iran are experiencing a shortage of nurses, who leave the country on a daily basis due to low salaries.
According to international standards, there should be a minimum of two nurses per hospital bed each day, while in Iran this number is half this, according to some officials.
The shortage of nurses has forced nurses to work many hours in overtime.
The protesting nurses chanted “ignoring nurses in the country results in more and more nurse migration”.
They carried signs that read: “Five percent of the health care is taking the 95 percent of the income” and “This is injustice”.
It is estimated that some 40 nurses leave Iran every day to work in other countries making the situation in the hospitals critical.
The flow of Iranian immigrant nurses to Canada has increased. Canada is the first immigration destination for Iranian nurses with close to 50 percent, while the UAE attracts some 30 percent of immigrants.
Australia, the USA and the UK are among other major destinations for Iranian nurses.
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