80 Percent of Iranians Cannot Afford Private Hospitals

More than 80 percent of people in Iran cannot afford to visit private hospitals, and about 10 to 15 percent rely on supplementary insurance to access private healthcare. This statement was made by Iraj Harirchi, Deputy Minister of Health, Treatment, and Medical Education, at the first International Hospital Construction, Equipment, and Facilities Exhibition that began in Tehran. Harirchi stated that private hospitals in Iran only serve four to five percent of the population, and the government's capacity to increase hospital beds is 'limited.' According to this official, the government can equip a maximum of four thousand hospital beds annually, while 'most of the existing beds are also outdated and do not function properly.' Mohammad Reza Noorouzi, an advisor to the Minister of Health on private hospitals, also declared the cost of building hospitals in Iran to be 'high.' Noorouzi mentioned that acquiring 'each hospital bed costs about 200 million tomans, and in some major cities where land costs are high, it can reach up to one billion tomans.' According to Health Ministry officials, Iran is short of 80,000 to 100,000 hospital beds, and by the end of the sixth development plan, 115,000 new beds need to be added to hospitals. Ebrahim Reisioun, an economic advisor to the Minister of Health, announced on January 17 that there are '1.7 beds for every thousand people in Iran,' while this ratio globally varies from 3 to 8 beds per thousand. Reisioun added that more than 50 percent of hospitals in Iran are 'outdated,' and the cost calculated for each hospital bed is 500 million tomans. On October 6 of this year, Mohammad Aghajani, Deputy for Treatment at the Ministry of Health, stated that 'the government's capacity is to create 2,000 beds annually, which means it will take 40 years to address the shortage of 80,000 hospital beds.' According to statistics released by the World Health Organization, Iran ranks 106th in the world with a life expectancy of 73.5 years. One of the factors affecting life expectancy is access to medical and healthcare services.