45,000 Nurses in Iran Infected with Coronavirus Since Beginning of Outbreak

According to Iran’s health minister’s deputy for nursing, approximately 45,000 nurses have been infected with COVID-19 since the beginning of the outbreak.

According to IRNA news agency, Maryam Hazrati said on Wednesday, December 26, during a press conference on the occasion of Nurses’ Week, that there is no accurate statistics on the number of nurses who died from coronavirus.

This comes while in early November this year, the secretary general of the Nursing Association announced the number of nurses who died from coronavirus as 60, and the nursing system across the country announced this figure as 84 in December.

Based on the nursing system’s report, 30 of these nurses lost their lives in November.

During today’s press conference, Iran’s health minister’s deputy for nursing also spoke about the shortage of nurses and recruitment, saying: “Based on defined standards, we should have 2.5 nurses for every bed, but currently it is about 1.1.”

According to Hazrati, the number of nurses should more than double to create a standard situation.

The issue of work pressure on medical staff, especially nurses, due to the coronavirus pandemic has been raised in recent months, as the deputy for nursing at the health ministry confirmed today that nurses’ allowances have decreased due to reduced hospital revenues.

Members of the supreme council and heads of board of directors of the nursing system across the country warned on December 7 of this year in a letter to the president about the spread of protests and dissatisfaction among nurses.

In this letter, the most important problems of nurses during coronavirus were announced as “fatigue; exhaustion and work hardship, shortage of manpower, reduction in payments, failure to fully implement special bonuses, lack of occupational safety and their high rate of illness, and failure to implement the decisions of the national coronavirus headquarters.”

Source: IRNA