Health Minister: There are 52 Closed and Incomplete Hospitals in Iran

The Iranian Minister of Health, Treatment, and Medical Education announced that currently, 17 hospitals across Iran are closed and unused due to a lack of personnel, equipment, and budget allocations, while 35 hospitals remain incomplete. According to the state news agency IRNA, Hassan Qazizadeh Hashemi stated on Saturday evening, December 29, during a visit to the only 32-bed hospital in the city of Rashtkhvar, Khorasan Razavi province, that this hospital has remained unused three days after its inauguration. He added, 'Although constructing hospitals with fewer than 50 beds is not advisable anywhere in the country, efforts will be made with the help of the parliament and government to equip, supply personnel, and allocate budgets for these hospitals.' According to IRNA, the 70,000-strong Rashtkhvar city lacks a hospital and roadside emergency services. Mr. Qazizadeh Hashemi also mentioned that 'the doors of three hospitals in South Khorasan province, which have been opened for more than two years, have been chained shut after three days.' This comes at a time when, according to Fars news agency, he stated on December 16 that urban marginalization and the dilapidation of health and medical infrastructure are the biggest problems in Mashhad, claiming that 'Mashhad needs 2,000 hospital beds.' The Minister of Health, Treatment, and Medical Education added that 'there are also 35 incomplete hospitals across Iran' that should be completed and put into operation with the help of the government and the private sector, as these projects, according to him, were constructed without proper backing. On September 9, he announced plans for his ministry to transfer its incomplete projects to the private sector. According to IRNA, Mr. Qazizadeh Hashemi on Saturday attributed the incomplete hospital construction projects to 'the envy of some officials in constructing these projects' and stated, 'The country has limited resources, and unfortunately, without planning, these resources are wasted.' The remarks of this minister in Hassan Rouhani's government regarding the incomplete or closed hospitals come at a time when Ali Akbar Velayati, head of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Discernment Council and head of Masih Daneshvari Hospital, stated on November 15 that 'five million residents of the southern and marginal areas of Tehran suffer from the lack of equipped hospitals.' According to the news agency Khabar Online, Mr. Velayati noted that 'in the Rey area in southern Tehran, there are only two very old hospitals.' In this context, according to IRNA, Mohammad Haji Aghajani, Deputy Minister of Health, Treatment, and Medical Education, stated on September 6 that 'the dilapidation of infrastructure in buildings and facilities is one of the main problems of hospitals in the country.' He also identified the shortage of human resources as another deficiency in medical centers. In September of this year, Mehr news agency reported on the consequences of the shortage of human resources, referring to the closure of a 32-bed public hospital in Abik, Qazvin province, one year after its inauguration, stating that this hospital remains closed to the public due to multiple issues, including the lack of permission to recruit personnel from the Presidential Administration and incomplete hospital equipment. In recent months, reports have emerged regarding the annual migration of healthcare personnel from Iran to other countries.