The Health Ministry is estimated to recruit 25,000 employees this year, 12,000 of whom are expected to be nurses, Abbas Ebadi, Nursing Deputy of the Health Ministry, announced on Monday.
“In Iran, we have 1.8 nurses for every hospital bed, which is a low figure,” Ebadi was quoted as saying by IRNA, after pointing to the global nursing shortage.
According to the official, there are currently 226,000 nurses active in governmental and non-governmental sectors across the country.
Ebadi noted, “One of the reasons for the shortage in the human workforce is the immigration of nurses from less-developed nations to countries with higher-paying salaries.”
Thousands of nurses have moved out of the country in recent years, exacerbating the problem. Ebadi stated that countries with large populations, such as India, Philippines and Thailand have managed this growing problem by training nurses for immigration. In turn, a part of the nurses’ income is returned to their home country after immigration.
Nurse shortages have been labeled as a ‘global health emergency’. The World Health Organization in 2020 announced that the world needed six million more nurses. The issue will reach a point of crisis by 2030 as millions of nurses retire in the coming years.
