Mass emigration: Iranian doctors deal painful blow to mullah regime

Nora Bandari

During the past few months, the corona virus has spread throughout Iran, with the increase in corona cases to 5.6 million and deaths to more than 120,000 cases, according to the latest statistics of Iranian health, while the health system in Iran is in a state of deterioration and imbalance, leaving health services at hospitals to collapse. This has prompted a large number of Iranian doctors to migrate abroad in order to search for other job opportunities in Western countries, hoping for the presence of medical institutions that appreciate their efforts and give them the necessary capabilities.

Iranian doctors emigrate

On October 4, the head of public relations in the Iranian medical system, Amir Sadr, revealed that in the late summer of 2020, more than a thousand doctors applied for a certificate of “good conduct” to migrate from Iran and work in the medical field abroad, stressing that this was not the first time that doctors submitted applications for immigration and that this phenomenon has witnessed a noticeable increase during the year 2021.

The Iranian Observatory for Migration reported in its latest surveys in 2019 that the phenomenon of emigration among university students and graduates in Iran increased by 42%, noting that this percentage increases every year among Iranian students, in addition to the fact that there are about 180,000 Iranians from the elite and those with higher degrees who migrate annually, especially in light of the deteriorating economic, health and living conditions in Iran.

Commenting on the rise in emigration, one Iranian doctor told the Los Angeles Times on May 23 that he wanted to get out of Iran to search for job opportunities in Western countries that provide resources to doctors and value their work.

For its part, the Iranian Medical Organization revealed in a report in January that the outbreak of the corona virus contributed significantly to the rise in the emigration of doctors, especially with the death of more than 200 doctors as a result of infection with the virus, indicating that more than 3,000 doctors emigrated during the ten months that followed the outbreak of the corona pandemic.

Not the first time

It is noteworthy that after the success of the Iranian revolution in 1979, the phenomenon of Iranian doctors’ emigration began to increase. In the period from 2000 to 2014, the percentage of Iranian immigrants holding prestigious scientific degrees exceeded 60%, and during the rule of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from 2005-2013, a large number of doctors emigrated due to the imposition of sanctions on Iran by Western countries, which caused the deterioration of the Iranian economy and the decline of the Iranian local currency.

Painful blow

A number of political analysts specializing in Iranian affairs and a number of Iranian activists stated that the reason for the rise in the phenomenon of doctors’ emigration abroad in the current period is due to the government’s lack of necessary policies that encourage doctors to stay in the country, especially during the corona pandemic and the deaths of a large number of doctors. Therefore, many Iranian doctors saw that they no longer had a future in Iran, which ultimately caused a severe blow and heavy loss to the mullah regime, which is facing multiple crises, in addition to its subjection to US sanctions that have caused the deterioration of economic and health conditions.