Tehran, Iran – Statements by an Iranian official revealed an escalating health sector crisis in Iran, with a severe shortage of nurses, negatively impacting the quality of healthcare services in the country.
Iran’s nursing shortage crisis
Ghasem Aboutalebi, head of the Supreme Council of Nursing in Iran, announced a severe shortage of 165,000 nurses in the Iranian health system during a Nurses’ Day ceremony held in Shiraz on Wednesday.
Abu Talbi explained that the ratio of nurses to hospital beds currently stands at 9 nurses for every 10 beds, while it was expected to reach 1 nurse for every 8 beds by the end of the sixth health program.
He added that the global standard requires three nurses per hospital bed, meaning Iran needs to attract the same number of nurses currently available to fill the existing shortage, according to Iranian media.
He pointed out that the Ministry of Health has prepared a plan to employ 15,000 nurses annually, and that it is currently in the process of obtaining approval.
Late payment of nurses’ dues
For his part, Abbas Obaidi, Deputy Chief of Nursing at the Ministry of Health, explained that the delay in paying nurses’ dues is due to a shortage of budget allocations, in addition to insurance companies’ delays in meeting their financial obligations.
Earlier, Mohammad Sharighi Moghaddam, Secretary-General of the Iranian Nurses Association, described the nursing situation in the country as a real crisis, arguing that difficult working conditions, psychological pressure, and unequal wages have driven many nurses to leave their jobs and seek employment outside the healthcare sector.
He pointed out that there are more than 60,000 unemployed nurses, despite the fact that the number of nursing school graduates is increasing annually.
Quality of health services
The shortage of nurses continues to negatively impact the quality of healthcare services, particularly in emergency and intensive care units, where this gap leads to long shifts and severe fatigue among staff.
However, Iran still only meets about half of the minimum number of nurses recommended by global health indicators, which stipulate that there should be three nurses per 1,000 people or at least two nurses per hospital bed.
This acute shortage poses significant challenges to the Iranian healthcare system and requires urgent efforts to address the situation and improve working conditions to attract and retain more nursing staff.
