Iranian media have reported at least five suicide cases among healthcare workers in the country since March 21, in what has been labeled as the third wave of suicides in the Iranian health sector since 2020.
On April 10, Sasan Ahmedi, a 32-year-old male nurse at a Kermanshah hospital, committed suicide in one of the hospital beds after his contract was not renewed. He was hired during the COVID pandemic.
Shima Kasrayi* is a 28-year-old nurse in western Iran’s Hamedan who had always dreamed of entering the profession to help people in need. After working in the field for four years, she says that the actual experience has killed her passion for nursing and that she now plans on migrating abroad.
“The main problem for nurses in Iran is the financial aspect. Despite the difficulties of the job, our income is very low,” Kasrayi told Rudaw English, adding that another issue is that “nurses and residents are often blamed for the mistakes of the doctors.”
Disrespect from patients’ families as well as mandatory overtime hours with low wages were also cited by Kasrayi as some of the reasons for the nurses’ frustration.
Most nurses have plans to migrate out of Iran as they see no hope for improvement of their situation within the country, and many have resorted to selling their handicrafts in the hospitals to make ends meet, according to Shahab, a 35-year-old nurse from Sanandaj.
“We are now forced to do mandatory overtime [hours], where we get paid 23,000 tomans [less than half a dollar] per hour, which is an oppression unlike any other,” Shahab told Rudaw English.
Around 74 percent of Iran’s healthcare workers have expressed desire to migrate out of the country, according to data from Iran’s Migration Observatory. The monitor reported that around 4,000 doctors left the country last year.
A research conducted by the Iranian Nursing Organization during the COVID pandemic showed that over 27 percent of nurses had reported having suicidal thoughts.
“We do not have accurate statistics regarding the suicide of nurses, because suicide is culturally reprehensible in our society and families do not want to report suicide. On the other hand, because in the case of suicide, families [of the deceased] are not provided with a pension, many do not want to state the cause of their family member's death,” Mohammad Sharifi Moghaddam, vice president of the Iranian Nursing Organization told local media.
Iran’s suicide rate has increased from five to seven per each 100,000 people over the past ten years, according to official statistics from authorities. The country’s crumbling economy and lack of job opportunities has been cited as one of the main factors contributing to the suicide epidemic.
Around 120,000 suicide attempts were reported across Iran in 2023, according to Hamid Peyravi, deputy head of Iran’s suicide prevention community.
*Names have been changed to protect the subjects’ identities
Translated by Chenar Chalak