Iran Faces Nursing Shortage

EghtesadOnline: The nurse to bed ratio in Iran is at 0.8, the head of Nursing Organization of Islamic Republic of Iran said.

News ID: ۷۴۶۴۹۳

15 January 2019

Asghar Dalvandi added that the ratio should rise to 1.8, Mehr News Agency reported.

"The ratio in Iran is lower than in Iraq and Kenya. The country needs to hire 150,000 nurses as per its 2025 Vision Plan and the Sixth Five-Year Development Plan (2017-22),” he said.

Dalvandi noted that the annual recruitment of at least 10,000 nurses is expected by 2022 following meetings held by the representatives of the Nursing Organization of Iran and members of the parliament, the government and officials with the Administrative and State Recruitment Organization, according to Financial Tribune.

With more than 150 nursing faculties, 2,000 faculty members and close to 250,000 nurses, the nursing society makes up the lion’s share of Health Ministry workforce. The Nursing Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran has 170,000 active members and 118 boards of directors across the country.

Latest available data provided by the Statistical Center of Iran show there were one hospital per 83,780 and one hospital bed per 508 residents in Iran as of the fiscal 2016-17, when the country had a total of 954 hospitals and each hospital had an average of 165 beds.

Alborz Province had the highest ratio of population to hospital, with one hospital per 159,553 residents and Ilam had the lowest ratio with one hospital per 52,742 residents.

Semnan Province had the lowest ratio of population to bed, with one bed per 340 residents and Alborz had the highest population to bed ratio with one bed per 1,040 residents.

All hospitals in Bushehr, Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari, South Khorasan, North Khorasan, Semnan and Sistan-Baluchestan were state-owned, whereas 42% of hospitals in Tehran were privately owned.

SCI also reported that the number of pharmacies nationwide grew by 49% in the year under review to reach 10,937 compared with 10 years before. There was one pharmacy per 7,308 Iranians in 2016-17 compared with one per 9,581 in 2006-7.

Sistan-Baluchestan Province had the lowest ratio of pharmacies to population with one pharmacy per 16,518 residents and Ilam had the highest ratio with one pharmacy per 4,795 residents.

In 2016-17, 24-hour pharmacies accounted for 12% of all the pharmacies and government-owned pharmacies constituted 9% of all pharmacies in the country.

Only 1% of pharmacies in Gilan and Hamedan were government-owned—the lowest among all provinces.

Ilam had the lion’s share of government-run pharmacies in the country (54%).

A total of 21% of pharmacies in Markazi Province were open round the clock (the highest number of 24-hour pharmacies in an Iranian province) compared with 8% of the pharmacies in West Azarbaijan and Semnan provinces.