Doctors, nurses and staff at private hospitals across Iran are being laid off amid the worst outbreak of coronavirus in the Middle East.
With the government restricting movement and ordering businesses to close, many private medical centres have cancelled operations and people have stopped seeking non-urgent medical care.
Dr Khalil Alizadeh, the managing director of Atieh Hospital in Tehran, released a video this week saying that he had been forced to lay off 50 per cent of his staff amid the outbreak.
The vast majority of coronavirus patients are being treated in public hospitals.
But Qassem Jan Babaei, the deputy minister of health, told the state-run Irna news agency that the government could not send recently fired medical staff to public hospitals to aid in the fight against the coronavirus as new doctors and nurses are hired based on annual quotas and on test scores.
He said the government would look to see if there was capacity in last year’s quota of new staff. Mr Jan Babaei did say that nurses could be hired on a three-month temporary contract to work in hospitals treating coronavirus patients, but they would not be given health insurance.
There are more than 60,000 confirmed cases and there have been more than 4,000 deaths from the coronavirus in Iran.
Coronavirus in the Middle East
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Iraqi Army officers salute to a group of doctors and medical staff in central Baghdad, Iraq. AP Photo -
A member of Kurdish Internal Security stands guard as Kurdish Red Crescent medics check a passenger for Covid-19 symptoms upon arrival from the Syrian capital, at a mobile site just outside Syria's Qamishli airport in the northeastern Hasakeh province. AFP -
Palestinian medics use a special ink to mark the fingers of Palestinian workers who cross back from Israel, at Tarqumiya crossing, near the West Bank town of Hebron. EPA -
Turkish Members of Parliament wear protective facemasks and share disinfectant gel, as a precaution against coronavirus, during the general assembly meeting of The Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara. AFP -
People wearing protective face masks wait at the Marmaray subway station in Istanbul, Turkey. EPA -
Fishermen moor their boats during a state of emergency and home confinement orders in Rabat, Morocco. AP Photo -
Palestinian bodybuilder Ahmed Tlatini, aged 26, trains at his home in Gaza City. EPA -
A Palestinian man bathes his donkey at the sea in the northern Gaza Strip. Reuters -
A man plays The national anthem on the flute in a nearly empty street in Baghdad, Iraq. AP Photo -
People wave national flags in solidarity with the families of those who have died or are ill with the coronavirus and support for doctors and nurses fighting to save them, in central Baghdad, Iraq. AP Photo -
Palestinian Hiba Junaidi poses with one of the stray cats she cares for in her house's backyard, which she had turned into a shelter, near the West Bank city of Hebron. AFP -
An ambulance drives through Jerash, in Jordan. EPA -
Workers of Egyptian non-governmental organisation Egyptian Food Bank prepare cartons with foodstuffs to distribute to people who lost their jobs in the Egyptian capital Cairo. AFP -
Egyptian men wearing masks wait outside a centre of non-governmental organisation Egyptian Food Bank to receive cartons with foodstuff in the Egyptian capital Cairo. AFP -
Volunteers disinfect an overcrowded housing complex to prevent the spread of coronavirus in Sale, near Rabat, Morocco. AP Photo -
A nurse takes a mucus sample from a suspected coronavirus patient at the Rafik Hariri public hospital in the Lebanese capital Beirut. AFP -
A Kuwaiti police vehicle is seen at the entrance of Jeleeb Al-Shuyoukh street, south of Kuwait City. EPA -
A Saudi nurse checks a patient's temperature at a mobile clinic in the Ajyad Almasafi district in the holy city of Makkah. AFP -
An Afghan health worker stands outside the temporary quarantine camps setup by the Red Crescent to prevent the spread of coronavirus at the entrance to the city, during a lockdown in Kandahar, Afghanistan. EPA
Hossein Kermanpour, an adviser to the vice-chancellor of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, told Irna that if the government doesn't intervene soon more doctors and nurses would be laid off.
He said that as well as falling patient numbers, operating costs were skyrocketing as basic hospital supplies – including cleaning products and personal protective equipment – were becoming hard to find.
"Hospitals have to buy disinfectants from the open market from intermediaries at expensive prices and do not have easy access to these items,” he said.
This has forced hospitals to cut staff hours and lay off medical workers.
Mr Jan Babaei said that public hospitals being used to treat coronavirus patients were trying to direct non-Covid-19 patients to private and charitable health centres.
Alireza Raisi, also a deputy health minister, said they have no data on the number of staff laid off in recent weeks but admitted the private medical sector in Iran was struggling financially.
Although all Iranians are entitled to national healthcare, years of underfunding have left an overstretched medical system and poor infrastructure. As such, many Iranians who can afford insurance opt for private care.
