Medical staff from different hospitals have held protest rallies in several Iranian cities over the past few days. Nurses gathered in Sanandaj, Rasht, Kermanshah, Eslamabad-e Gharb and Yazd to protest livelihood problems, including unpaid overtime work, experience bonus and tariffs in 2022.
November 20—Sanandaj, western #Iran
Nurses hold rally, protesting poor wages, unpaid salaries, and forced extra-hour work.#IranProtests pic.twitter.com/9s04Vd6Ljg— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) November 20, 2023
In these protests, they chanted slogans against the government. According to videos posted on social media, protesting nurses in Yazd protested in front of the city’s governorate, criticizing the city’s health officials: “Incompetent officials, resign!”
This is not the first time nurses have hold protest rallies in Iran. In recent months, nurses and medical staff in Sanandaj protested against the poor living conditions in front of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences and chanted, “Nurses, shout your rights!” and “Tariffs are paid in rials, but expenses are in dollars.”
November 19—Kermanshah, western #Iran
Nurses hold rally for second consecutive day, protesting poor wages, unpaid salaries, and forced extra-hour work.#IranProtestspic.twitter.com/HGhsVJ65PC— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) November 19, 2023
Last week, Mohammad Sharifi Moghaddam, the secretary general of The Nurse’s Home (Khaneye Parastar), revealed that “more than 90 percent of nurses are dissatisfied with their jobs” and said, “The shortage of nurses is so serious that some patients lose their lives. If patients don’t say anything it is because they are not aware [of this shortage] or are silently accepting it.”
Earlier, the state-run ILNA news agency reported that a nurse said she had recently paid 22 million rials to her account for 147 hours of overtime in January 2023. The government had deducted 2.4 million rials of tax from her salary.
Before that, Mehr News Agency in a report mentioning the low salaries of nurses and lack of staff in the medical staff, wrote that the compensation for forced overtime by nurses is so small that they can only buy a can of canned fish with the payment they receive for six hours of overtime.
The crisis of nurse shortages in Iran has worsened, especially since the Coronavirus outbreak, and nurses have repeatedly held protests in different cities to protest their job status.
More footage of today's protest rally by oil workers in Ahvaz.#Iran #IranProtestspic.twitter.com/ImCEB29ZnP
— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) November 19, 2023
At the same time, the part-time workers of the Oil Ministry Ahvaz also gathered again to protest the failure of their demands. Among the demands of these employees are “full implementation of the 2021 resolutions,” “modification of the remuneration formula according to the model of official personnel and the specified contract,” “correction of the overtime rate” and “adjustment of New Year bonuses according to the vote of the General Board of Administrative Justice.”
Also, on Saturday through Sunday, retirees of different sectors, including the telecommunications industry, the steel industry, and the Social Security Organization, returned to the streets to reiterate their demands.
More footage of today's protest rally by the retirees of the Social Security Organization.#Iran #IranProtests pic.twitter.com/vHvKa2JV2S
— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) November 19, 2023
According to the regime’s own laws, the government is responsible to adjust the pensions of retirees according to the costs of living. But the regime continues to renege on its own responsibilities, and the lives of retirees continue to spiral into poverty and misery.
The escalation of inflation and the constant increase in the cost of living and at the same time the regime’s failure to meet livelihood needs of people have led workers, nurses, retirees and other wage earners to hold protest rallies in different cities of Iran on most days of each week.
In some cases, security forces crack down on these gatherings, and a number of protesters are arrested. However, the protests have continued to spread.
