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The unprecedented and unpredictable nature of the disease has led to gradual burnout of the health workforce, especially among healthcare workers directly involved in treating patients with COVID-19. On the one hand, burning is caused by the rapid spread, lack of treatment and serious health consequences; On the other hand, it is driven by persistent deficiencies in the health care system: inexperienced staff working in an epidemic situation; untrained new medical staff; lack of equipment, medicines and other necessary resources; low ratio of nurses and doctors to hospital beds; Inefficient vacation time; stress Families not being able to go to the hospital with patients; The health worker’s rigid and busy shift; Infected workers continue to receive care; and lack of alternative staff for medical staff.
In the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 3000 Iranian doctors applied to emigrate to foreign countries. During the outbreak, the number of requests for migration from nurses increased by 300%.
Those left in the country have worked day and night through several waves of COVID-19 to eradicate the virus permanently and hope for a better and healthier future.
,
But no big change was seen. Due to severe resource shortages and budget deficits, increasing the number of medical professionals through short-term contracts and volunteers has been used by policy makers to maintain staff numbers and control revolving costs. Except for permanent employees and long-term employment contracts, the rest of the health professionals are employed in hospitals in various types of work that do not provide any future job security, such as 89-day contracts and voluntary workers with a small salary.
Moreover, the national laws required to support medical professionals are only partially implemented or not implemented at all. The ratio of nurses to nursing assistants per hospital bed is approximately 0·8–1·0 per bed.
(compared to levels of 3·0 nurses and 4·0 nursing assistants per bed).
Considering how the heavy workload of nurses affects the health of patients, the government should take immediate steps to compensate for the shortage of hospital staff.
The introduction of home care services and investment in the development of telemedicine have the potential to reduce the workload of the health worker. For this purpose, the different levels of the health system in Iran’s Ministry of Medical Education and Health should be closely coordinated at the levels of service delivery and policy making.
We have no competing interests.
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Published: September 17, 2022
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