About 5,000 nurses leave service in Iran each year as seven proposals from a government working group go unimplemented

Ahmad Nejatian, head of Iran's Nursing Organization, said early on Saturday, 1 August 2026, that about 5,000 working nurses leave the service each year, a figure he said was released by the Ministry of Health and can be cited with confidence. At the same time, roughly 17,000 to 18,000 people graduate in nursing annually.

He said that on the president's instruction a working group was formed comprising the Nursing Organization, the Ministry of Health, the Administrative and Recruitment Affairs Organization and the Planning and Budget Organization. It worked on the issue for about a year, and the health minister ultimately put seven specific proposals to the government, but almost none of them were implemented. The proposed package included building hostel accommodation for nurses, raising nursing tariffs, tax exemptions and a set of support measures.

Nejatian attributed part of the situation to the country's wartime conditions, but said the main share was down to "a lack of will among policymakers". On figures suggesting 60,000 nurses are out of work, he said explicitly that he could neither confirm nor deny the number, because it would require precise statistical study.

He said training each nurse costs about 5 to 6 billion tomans, while the country has no effective plan to recruit and retain them, so in practice they either end up emigrating or staying at home.