Rajavi: The cry of the nurses is the cry of all people, and supporting those who sacrifice day and night is a national and public duty.
Today, Wednesday, November 12, 2025, the protest and strike of nurses in Mashhad entered its third day. A large number of nurses gathered at the ‘Akbar Children’s Hospital,’ chanting slogans such as ‘Nurses are crushed while the coffers of the command centers are filled,’ ‘Without nurses, the system collapses,’ and ‘The tariff is our right, the money is in your pocket.’ They voiced their anger against discrimination, non-payment of bonuses, and the false promises of the regime’s officials, emphasizing that the continuation of this situation is impossible.
Prior to this, on Monday and Tuesday, nurses had gathered at the Ghaem and Imam Reza medical centers, subsequently marching and challenging the oppression of the mullahs’ regime. These actions are a continuation of the nurses’ strikes in Kermanshah, Zanjan, Yazd, Isfahan, and other cities, which have persisted in recent months and reflect the growing anger of nurses towards the regime’s plundering and anti-human policies.
The healthcare system is collapsing due to the regime’s plundering policies and incompetence. On October 22, 2025, the IRGC’s Fars news agency quoted Qassem Aboutalebi, the head of the country’s Supreme Nursing Council, saying: ‘We are currently short of 165,000 nurses in the country… The nurse-to-hospital-bed ratio in Iran is 0.9, while the world standard is 3 nurses per hospital bed.’ The global standard is 3 to 5 hospital beds per 1000 people, but this figure in Iran is 1.6 beds. This means the number of nurses in Iran relative to the population is at least 6 times lower than the global standard. This is while, according to the Secretary-General of the House of Nurses, about 60,000 to 70,000 graduate nurses are unemployed and at home (Eghtesad24 website – November 11, 2025).
This fatal shortage has caused ‘one nurse to care for an average of 12 patients’ (Hamshahri Online – October 27, 2025), a matter that, according to the Secretary-General of the House of Nurses, has led to ‘the death of patients in hospitals’ (Asr Iran – March 29, 2025).
The salary for a large portion of nurses is around 20 million tomans. This is while seven months ago, ‘the relative poverty line was estimated to be over 35 million tomans’ (Rokna – March 22, 2025). Moreover, even this meager salary is often paid with a delay of several months. Basir Hashemi, the president of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, said: ‘Fars province is ahead with a two-month delay in paying nurses’ arrears; in other provinces, these arrears reach 7 to 8 months’ (Fars News Agency – October 22). The pressure on nurses is so severe that annually more than ‘3,000 nurses emigrate from the country’ (Asr Iran – March 29, 2025).
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, saluted the honorable nurses of Mashhad and said that with the slogan ‘Nurses are crushed while the coffers of the command centers are filled,’ they have pointed to the root of oppression and injustice, which is none other than the religious fascism and the Velayat-e Faqih system, and have declared that they have no patience left. Supporting the nurses who sacrifice day and night to save patients’ lives is a national duty. Their cry is the cry of all the people of Iran, who know that as long as this regime is in power, there will be no end to oppression and injustice.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
12 November 2025