Despite security pressures, nurses have engaged in widespread protests and strikes, marking an unprecedented scale of action. According to the Secretary General of the Nurses' House, this is the first time in 100 years of history that nurses have stopped working.

A high percentage of nurses in Iran, particularly in Kurdistan, lack adequate job security and work under 89-day contracts, which often creates difficulties for contract renewal and denies them access to unemployment benefits.

According to government media statistics, the poverty line in the country has reached 30 million tomans per month, while at the same time, the monthly income of nurses in Iranian Kurdistan is about 13 million tomans,

based on field reports from the Hana Human Rights Organization. The lack of respect for the rights of nurses and healthcare staff has led many of them to migrate annually, choosing to serve in another country.

The absence of job security, incomes below the poverty line, and excessive working hours have not only encouraged migration but also created conditions leading to suicide among healthcare staff and nurses. The suicide of Sasan Ahmadi, a 32-year-old nurse at Imam Kermanshah Hospital on April 9, 2024, further adds to the growing list of suicides within the healthcare community.

In recent years, strikes and protests in Kurdistan have been sporadic, but the latest protests have entered a more continuous and serious phase. Nurses' protests in Sanandaj, Kermanshah, and other cities have been met with repression by security forces, and the protesters have been subjected to pressure and threats of dismissal by hospital heads.

Nurses' professional associations in Kurdistan are under pressure and threats from government forces. Given the current situation and the approaching anniversary of Mahsa Amini's death, it is likely that widespread arrests and enforced disappearances of protesters may occur. The involvement of nurses in the protests indicates that other social groups may soon join the movement.

Let us be their voice and defend their trampled rights—nurses who serve the people with all their heart.

By: Soma yousfi