Nurses Strike in Noorabad Mamassani; Medical Staff in Marand Protest Power Outages

Nurses' strikes that have been ongoing in several cities in Iran, including Shiraz, continued on Wednesday, August 24, with the participation of more nurses in Noorabad Mamassani, Kangan, and Yazd. Simultaneously, nurses at a hospital in Marand went on strike in protest against power outages that endangered patients' lives. According to the Telegram channel 'Civil Protest Market', on Wednesday, August 24, nurses at 'Valiasr' Hospital in Noorabad Mamassani in Fars Province joined the nurses' strikes. Sina Yousefi, a lawyer, also stated on the social media platform 'X': 'The medical staff at Kouhkamari Hospital in Marand have gone on strike to defend the lives of the people.' The report indicated that 'frequent power outages and the lack of emergency power for hospital devices and equipment' have put 'patients' lives', especially in the 'neonatal intensive care unit', at risk, leading to 'protests and strikes by the medical staff of this hospital.' Yousefi announced that some staff members in the hospital's 'imaging department' had previously stopped working and had 'entered their third week of strike', emphasizing that 'the lack of an organizational chart and the forced and secret employment of personnel due to the lack of operational permits with inadequate infrastructure are among the reasons for the strike in this department.' Economic protests in Iran are increasing with the expansion of nurses' strikes in hospitals across various cities, and on Tuesday, August 23, nurses had already gone on strike in at least Markazi, Yazd, Kermanshah, and Bushehr provinces. The website 'Tejarat News' quoted a nurse from a public hospital in Shiraz, stating: 'Long shifts, high work pressure, very low wages... all of these eventually lead to a point where we have to stop working to claim our rights.' Meanwhile, with the expansion of nurses' protests, the government news agency 'IRNA' reported that Abbas Abadi, the nursing deputy at the Ministry of Health, stated that 'the total demands of 210,000 nurses amount to about 80 trillion tomans, and part of these demands will be paid soon after follow-ups.' On the other hand, Tejarat News reported on Wednesday, referring to the ongoing strike in public hospitals in Shiraz, that 'we have been given these promises many times, and until they are implemented, we cannot believe them anymore. Moreover, the problems of nurses must be solved fundamentally. This mafia that has prevented the implementation of the nursing service tariff law for 17 years must be eliminated.' Previously, according to some reports, in some cities, instead of facilitating the return of nurses, hospital managers have requested help from nurses in Tehran hospitals, military nurses, and several soldiers. Tejarat News reported regarding the strike of nurses in public hospitals in Shiraz: 'Many of the nurses who have stopped working and are on strike for their rights have been threatened multiple times since the beginning of these protests, and they have been told that if they do not return to work, they will either be fired or may face imprisonment.' Nurses' strikes have so far been ongoing in several cities in the provinces of Fars, Alborz, Yazd, Bushehr, Mazandaran, Isfahan, Kermanshah, and East Azerbaijan.