RASC News Agency: Ahmad Najatian, President of Iran’s National Nursing Organization, has stated that fewer than 50 Afghanistani nurses are currently employed in Iranian hospitals and healthcare centers with official work permits.
Najatian also warned that the presence of unregistered and unlicensed Afghanistani nurses poses serious risks, noting:
“In the event of an incident, no one will be held accountable.” According to a report by Iran’s Labour News Agency (ILNA), Najatian stressed that a significant number of Afghanistani nurses are working without licenses, often earning minimal wages and operating without insurance coverage.
He further explained:
“There is a fundamental reluctance to pay nurses wages that fairly reflect the scope and demands of their work. This is symptomatic of a major failure in the management of human resources in the nursing sector, a failure that is steadily driving us toward a full-blown crisis.” Although Iran produces a sufficient number of trained nursing professionals annually, Najatian acknowledged that the country faces critical challenges in both recruitment and retention. He noted that Iran’s public and private institutions graduate over 15,000 healthcare professionals each year including surgical nurses, anesthetic nurses, and emergency care personnel.
Nonetheless, Najatian admitted:
“We are not only unable to fully absorb these graduates into the healthcare system, but even when we do, we fail to retain them. This broken cycle has created acute shortages in the public sector and pushed private hospitals to rely increasingly on unauthorized and undocumented nurses.” Najatian further expressed concern that many unlicensed Afghanistani nurses remain unregistered with any official regulatory body. This lack of oversight, he warned, could lead to serious complications regarding responsibility and accountability if adverse events occur in patient care.
