Health Minister concerned about worsening economic conditions in 2020
The Minister of Health called injustice the reason for the social uprising and predicted that 2020 will be a difficult year. Saeed Namaki said that nurses are the same group that has 18 months of unpaid salaries and that hospitals are also facing a shortage of nurses.
Saeed Namaki, Minister of Health, at a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Nursing System, considered discrimination and injustice to be the basis for social uprisings and said that if people were not faced with these feelings, they would show more patience and tolerance.
According to Iranian media reports, Saeed Namaki also said on Monday, December 30, that if the country's economic situation continues in this way, 2020 will be a more difficult year than 2019, and that as Minister of Health, he will be forced to "adjust the income and expenditure of this ministry in line with the country's budget."
Nursing unions have still not been able to collect 16 to 18 months of unpaid wages and overtime for many nurses across the country. In August of this year, nurses in hospitals in several major Iranian cities complained about “dramatic and even negative reductions” in wages calculated under the “Dandelion” scheme.
Qasedak is a plan that determines the amount of pay each individual receives based on a specific formula based on performance, hours worked, overtime, location of service, and other factors.
Discrimination and failure to properly implement nursing laws, including the tariff law, productivity, and difficult jobs, are other areas of concern for nurses' protests.
"Dandelion Messenger" is not good news!
The Minister of Health called the Dandelion Plan "unsuccessful, unfair, and economically irrational" and called for its reform.
According to nurses and protesters working in health centers, the implementation of the Qasedak plan has significantly reduced their overtime and commission payments. For example, in some cases before the Qasedak plan was implemented, nurses' commission payments were one and a half to two million Tomans per month, but after this plan, these amounts have now decreased to 800,000 Tomans.
The Iranian Nursing Society said it has been pursuing reform of this plan since 2018, and officials from the Ministry of Health and the parliament did not pay attention to the nurses' demands. In a massive protest and rally in late 2018, nurses published a letter containing 20 articles addressed to officials from the Ministry of Health and announced their demands.
On Wednesday, January 24 of this year, the "Nurses' House" criticized the extremely poor situation of nurses in Iran in a letter to Hassan Rouhani, saying, "With the many unpaid salaries that have not been paid for 16 months, we see no reason to participate in the Nurses' Day celebration."
Saeed Namaki said on Monday regarding the situation of nurses that the Ministry of Health owed 10 trillion tomans to the Social Security Organization, of which 5 trillion tomans had been collected.
The Minister of Health approved the 18-month unpaid overtime and overtime for Iranian nurses and said that the salaries and amounts received by nurses should be coordinated and consistent with the country's economic conditions.
Nurses' immigration
It seems that it is this incompatibility of salaries with the economic situation that has made medical assistants, nurses, and graduates of bachelor's to doctoral degrees in nursing interested in emigrating from the country.
The Secretary General of the Iranian Nursing Home, in an interview with ILNA, reported that 400 nurses emigrate abroad annually.
According to statistics from the Nursing Home, the trend of nurse migration has increased in the beginning of 2016 compared to 2015. This statistic has been accompanied by ups and downs in 2017, such that in April 2017, 8 nurses migrated. This number increased by 4 in May, reaching 12 nurses. This statistic was obtained after nurses voluntarily declared their intention to quit their jobs and obtain professional approval from the Nursing Home.
Mohammad Sharifi Moghadam, Secretary General of the Iranian Nursing Home, cited financial problems as the reason for nurses' migration to Australia, Canada, and even the Persian Gulf. According to him, according to the latest statistics for 2018, more than 180 nurses have migrated to Australia alone.
Hard working conditions
Beatings of nurses, along with forced overtime and non-payment of wages, have combined to weaken nurses' motivation to work.
Source: DW
