Protest Gatherings of Nurses in Various Provinces of Iran

Mrs. Rajavi, saluting the protesting nurses, said that the people of Iran have found their way to salvation from oppression and injustice through uprising and overthrow
As part of the wave of nurses’ protests in Iran that began in recent weeks, today, Saturday, August 17, nurses at the “Imam Reza” hospital in Mashhad gathered in the complex’s courtyard and chanted protest slogans. The nurses chanted: “Inflation is in dollars, our salaries are in rials.” This is while nurses had been threatened the night before that if they gathered and protested, they would face consequences. Today, instead of addressing the nurses’ demands, the regime dispatched repressive law enforcement forces to their protest site. The nurses announced that their strike and protests would continue until their demands are met.
The nurses’ strike began on August 2, 2024, in Shiraz and Karaj, with nurses in Karaj striking at Kowsar, Imam Ali, and Shariati hospitals. In Shiraz, nurses from 9 hospitals went on strike on August 2. Subsequently, the nurses’ protests spread to the cities of Darab in Fars, Noorabad Mamasani, Tangan in Bushehr, Kermanshah, Fasa, Jahrom, Mazandaran, Eslamabad-e Gharb, Abadeh in Shiraz, Lamerd in Fars, Tabriz, Zanjan, Arak, Yazd, Mashhad, and Yasouj.
In their protest gatherings, nurses chanted slogans such as: “Enough with promises, our tables are empty”; “Where are our tariffs? In your pockets”; “Nurses, unite, unite”; “Nurse, shout out, cry out for your rights”; “Inflation is in dollars, our salaries are in rials”; “Without nurses, the hospital is closed”; “We don’t want your 20 Toman charity”; “Incompetent official, resign, resign”; “We fought coronavirus, we saw no support.”
The regime’s newspaper Hammihan wrote on Sunday, August 11: “90 percent of nurses in Shiraz hospitals have stopped working. Instead of hospital managers contacting these nurses, security agencies and head nurses have contacted them, threatening dismissal, file creation, and summons.”
Mohammad Sharifi Moghaddam, Secretary of the Nursing Home, said: “In recent months, nurses across the country have faced intense pressure from the Ministry of Health due to protests against their working conditions, including incomplete implementation of the tariff law and mandatory overtime… Annually, 12,000 nursing students enter the country’s universities, but only a small percentage of these graduates are employed and work in Iran. A large number of employed nurses also leave for European countries, America, and Persian Gulf countries a few years later, at the peak of their experience and readiness as skilled and expert nurses.” (Shargh government newspaper – August 15). The same source wrote: “The Strategic Studies Center of the Presidency recently reported in a report that 73 percent of doctors and nurses considered the effects of inflation on their desire to emigrate as ‘very high’.” The Secretary of the Nursing Home also emphasized: “The performance-based pay of some doctors reaches up to one billion tomans! Meanwhile, nurses have to cover their living expenses with a monthly salary of 13 to 15 million. Nurses should receive three times what they are currently paid.”
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, while saluting the dedicated and hardworking nurses who, despite their grueling round-the-clock work and sincere service to their sick compatriots, suffer from the neglect of the plundering mullahs’ regime, low wages, and severe deprivation, said that nurses who have reached their breaking point due to mandatory overtime, difficult working conditions, and low salaries, have gone on strike in various cities.
Nurses, residents, and other medical staff who responsibly care for their compatriots are raising their voices of protest against the ruling religious fascism louder, in unison with other workers. The people of Iran have found their way to salvation from oppression, discrimination, and injustice in uprising and overthrowing the vile mullahs’ regime.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
17 August 2024