“Some 60,000 of the 145,000 nurses attending to the sick have been infected with the coronavirus. 6,000 are in the quarantine. Around 100 have lost their lives,” said Mirzabeigi on the shortage of nurses in Iran.
Mirzabeigi, the General Director of the National Nursing Organization, said: “The most important problem of the nurses’ community is severe shortage of forces. Because there are only 145,000 nurses for 170,000 hospital beds; a correlation of 0.8. While the standard is 2.5 nurses per bed. Therefore, the number of working nurses must increase 2.5 times for us to reach the standard conditions. If the number of beds continue to increase and nurses are retired without replacements, the shortage of nurses in Iran will increase and this would hurt the patients more than anyone else.” (The official IRNA news agency – December 17, 2020)
Maryam Hazrati, the Health Ministry’s deputy for nurses’ affairs, said: “Presently, 2,000 ICU beds have been added and this section needs specialist forces. To fulfill this need at least 5,000 nurses need to be trained.” (The official IRNA news agency – December 16, 2020)
Hazrati also pointed to the unpaid wages of nurses in Iran. She said in some medical sciences universities, nurses did not receive their wages for 14 months in 2019. In 2020, another six months has been added to this. She did not speak of any specific plans to compensate for the past due wages.
Shortage of nurses in Iran
Based on the statistics collected by the Iranian Resistance, the death toll due to the Coronavirus in Iran has exceeded 186,900 in 470 cities by December 17, 2020.
Shamsi, head of the Supreme Council of the Nursing System, had this about shortage of nurses in Iran: “One of the main problems is the severe shortage of nurses in Iran. We do not have even one nurse for every hospital bed while the international standard is 2.5 nurses per bed. Even in developing countries, this number is higher than 2. If we have 130,000 nurses on duty right now, we need to recruit the same number.” (The state-run ISNA news agency – December 14, 2020)
Hazrati, the Health Ministry’s deputy for Nurses Affairs, said: “We have recruited around 10,000 forces since 2019, but this has not been able to respond to the needs.” (The state-run Iranonline.ir – December 15, 2020)
Tabarsi, head of the Infections Department of Masih Daneshvari Hospital, spoke about the critical conditions during the pandemic in Iran. He said: “The situation in the country, and consequently in Tehran, is not stable. Hospitals and the healthcare staff no longer have any tolerance. In every severe peak, the disease lasts for 8 weeks.” (The state-run Hamshahrionline.ir – December 14, 2020)
