Continued Triple-Digit Rise in Coronavirus Deaths in Iran Amid Supply ‘Crisis’
Iran’s Health Ministry spokesman announced on Tuesday the identification of 2,563 coronavirus patients and 115 additional deaths from coronavirus.
This is the third consecutive day that the number of coronavirus victims in Iran has reached triple digits after an extended period.
Previously, Health Ministry officials had warned that an increase in infection rates in the country would lead to an increase in the number of victims.
Sima Lari, speaking on Tuesday, June 17, on television news, reported that when including cases of infection and death in the past 24 hours, the official number of infected and victims in Iran was 192,439 and 9,065 people, respectively.
According to her, currently 2,815 coronavirus patients in Iran are under special care, and the number of recovered patients has reached 152,675 people.
As Iran’s Health Ministry spokesman announced, the situation in the provinces of Khuzestan, East and West Azerbaijan, Razavi Khorasan, Lorestan, Kermanshah, Golestan, Hormozgan, Kurdistan, and Sistan and Baluchestan remains “red.”
The return to triple-digit coronavirus deaths in Iran is announced at a time when, according to Iraj Harirchi, Deputy Minister of Health, the number of deaths in Iran during the Iran-Iraq War was only 66 people per day, but currently coronavirus claims the lives of at least 100 people daily in the country.
Meanwhile, the Nursing Organization announced on Tuesday that two “simultaneous crises”—namely, a shortage of nurses and the coronavirus epidemic—threaten public health.
According to IRNA, in a letter sent by this organization to Hassan Rouhani, it stated that due to the very close contact of nurses with coronavirus patients, by June 17, 2020, 7,400 nurses were definitively infected with coronavirus and 18 have died.
The Nursing Organization, noting that “65 to 68 thousand nurses directly served coronavirus patients alone during these four months,” sharply criticized the treatment of nurses during this period.
As stated in the letter, “many medical universities forcibly compelled nurses to work overtime exceeding the legal ceiling,” and their wages were paid with “delays of 7 to 17 months.”
This organization sharply criticized that despite the allocation of “considerable resources” from the national reserve fund to compensate for coronavirus damages, payments (titled as coronavirus allowance) totaling 18,000 tomans, 28,000 tomans, and 100,000-150,000 tomans are being made to nurses.
The Nursing Organization emphasized that since the outbreak of coronavirus, the “worst incident” has been the treatment of volunteer nurses serving in northern provinces including Gilan and Mazandaran and almost the entire country.
The organization elaborated: “Despite the promise of priority employment and one-year engagement, after two months of activity, without paying their monthly legal salaries and benefits, an 89-day hourly mandatory contract was presented to them, and payment of any of their legal salaries and benefits was made conditional on signing this contract.”
This letter introduced nurses as “the most engaged people with the coronavirus issue and the closest person to the coronavirus patient” and called for the employment of nurses, payment of overdue wages, and reform of the payment system.
Source: Radio Farda
