Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan. 15 /Trend S.Isayev, T. Jafarov/
Iran is looking to employ 17,000 more nurses by the end of the current Iranian year (ends on March 2013), ISNA reported.
President of the General Nursing Council of Iran, Gazanfar Mirzabeygi said that during the last three years, according to Iranian president's decree, about 90,000 people were employed by the Ministry of Health.
"This year, we plan to employ 30,000 more, with 17-18 thousand of them being nurses," Mirzabeygi said.
In October 2012, Mirzabeygi said that the hospitals in Iran are experiencing shortage of nurses, who leave the country on a daily basis.
According to Mirzabeygi, the nurses leave Iran because of low salaries, while abroad they are getting paid more than in Iran.
Mirzabeygi said that recently, one of Iran's neigboring countries, without revealing which country, said it seeks to invite some 30,000 of Iran's nurses for work, with a monthly salary of $2,000, "Tehran Emruz" newspaper reported.
Secretary of Iran's Nursing Council Sadighe Salimi has also said that daily some 40 nurses leave Iran, and the situation in the hospitals is critical.
She said that newly hired nurses in Iran get a salary of some $380, and such low payment forces nurses to leave their jobs.
Salimi said that these nurses mostly leave to the U.S., Canada an Australia, where the average nursing salary ranges from $2,500 to $4,000.
In August 2011, Iranian Nursing Organization Deputy Ahmad Nejatian said that the flow of immigrants from Iran to Canada among nurses has increased over the past 6 months.
Canada is the first immigration destination for Iranian nurses with 47 percent while the UAE attracts 33 percent of immigrants. Australia, the USA and the UK are among other major destinations with suitable conditions for Iranian nurses.