For more than two weeks, Iran’s hardworking nurses have risen in protest, demonstrating and striking against the oppressive working conditions and their stolen wages. Regarding the scale of these protests, the state-run Khabar Online news website, on August 19, 2023 quoted the Secretary-General of the state-affiliated Nurses’ House and wrote “The protests are so widespread that everyone has lost count.”
In this unified protest movement, thousands of nurses from various provinces across the country have joined together, expressing their anger and protest the anti-people regime. They shout, “Nurses, shout out! Cry out for your rights.”
The working conditions for nurses are extremely oppressive and inhumane, and the salaries they receive are several times below the poverty line. A full-time nurse with 10 years of experience earns a fixed salary of approximately 140 million rials (around $280) per month. Additionally, nurses are forced to work overtime for just 200,000 rials per hour (approximately $0.33, equivalent to the cost of an average ice cream). A nurse with 28 years of service receives only 430,000 rials per hour (about $0.70) for overtime.
Most nurses are forced to work 12 hours a day, and since the nurse-to-patient ratio in Iran is one-third of the global standard, nurses are subjected to overwhelming pressure.
The inhumane pressure on nurses is so intense that several nurses and resident doctors have committed suicide in the past year in cities like Tehran, Sanandaj, and Kermanshah. An increasing number of nurses have migrated to other countries in response to these crushing conditions. Over the past year, more than 3,000 nurses have emigrated, because in comparison to Iran, they earn several times more in countries like Oman and Bahrain. This wave of migration has led to a crisis in the country’s healthcare system.
In addition to grueling working conditions, forced overtime, 12-hour shifts, and extremely low wages that do not even cover the cost of a basic livelihood, the regime violates its own agreements and contracts with nurses, failing to properly implement service tariffs for them. Even the meager wages, including bonuses and overtime, are paid with delays of several months. The Deputy Minister of Nursing in the regime’s Ministry of Health, as quoted by the state-run Etemad newspaper on August 20, said, “The overdue payments to the healthcare workforce amount to 320 trillion rials, of which about 80 trillion rials are owed to the country’s 210,000 nurses.”
The regime’s response to these protests and the legitimate demands of the oppressed nurses has been to suppress them through the police, summon protesters, and threaten them with dismissal or even imprisonment, as it neither wants to nor can solve any of these problems. However, the nurses have bravely stood up to the regime’s pressures, responding to threats by saying they prefer staying home over surrendering.
The nurses, like other oppressed groups, have come to realize that this regime only understands the language of force, and the only answer to the rulers’ tyranny is resistance and unity. Therefore, they shout, “Only on the streets can we get our rights.”
Despite the atmosphere of repression and suffocation, nurses have succeeded in uniting across the country and forming this united movement.
Nurses have realized their power and shout in their slogans: “Our power is our unity, it is the fruit of our labor.”
Nurses have not been intimidated by threats or deceived by empty promises, and they shout, “Nurses would rather die than accept humiliation.”
In their street protests, nurses have gained the solidarity of honorable retirees, who for months have been shouting for their rights in the streets, highlighting the joining and unity of oppressed groups, which is the key to victory.