Severe shortage of medical facilities in Iran’s Baluchistan

Some Iranian regime media outlets report on the severe shortage of medical facilities in the Baluchistan region, the southern part of Sistan and Baluchistan province, and say that some Baluch citizens have to “sleep for eight days in front of the hospital” just to get an appointment for an ultrasound scan.

On August 1, Asr-e Iran website published a video about the shortage of medical facilities in this area, showing an elderly woman from the Kafeh Baluchi village who says she has been waiting for eight days in front of a medical center in the city of Saravan to get an appointment for an ultrasound scan.

According to this report, in this vast area, which is more than 400 kilometers from its westernmost point to Zahedan (the provincial capital) and about 700 kilometers from its southernmost point, and where each city is far from another, there are “fewer hospitals than the fingers of one hand.”

The report adds that in some areas there are no dentists available, and citizens have to travel about 100 kilometers for dental treatment.

In the same vein, the regime’s semiofficial ISNA news agency announced in a report in May that health and medical problems in Baluchistan are “more severe than other parts of Iran,” adding that Imam Ali Hospital in Chabahar is not only unsuitable for patients because it does not have a central air conditioning system, but also the hospital is so dilapidated that part of it is held up by iron jacks.

The video released by Asr-e Iran shows images of the Minister of Health’s visit to the basement of this hospital and its “iron jacks”. The report continued that “people are forced to risk sleeping in this hospital because there is no closer medical center.”

Nevertheless, many patients who have the chance to be hospitalized at Imam Ali Hospital in Chabahar are kept in the hospital corridors.

in an interview with Asr-e Iran, Moeineddin Saeedi, a member of the Majlis (parliament) from Chabahar, said that due to the severe shortage of medical centers, long lines of people from this region can be seen in cities such as Mashhad, Shiraz, and Yazd, who have gone to these cities for treatment.

According to Saeedi, some Baluch citizens even go to Pakistan for treatment due to the shortage of hospitals in Iran’s Baluchistan.

This member of parliament added that the six coastal cities of Makran region, namely Chabahar, Konarak, Nikshahr, Qasr-e Qand, Dashtyari, and Zarabad, only have access to one equipped hospital in Chabahar.

Saeedi had previously criticized the Rohani government in an interview with ISNA, saying, “The hospital bed ratio per thousand people in the south of the province is 0.6, which is much lower than the national average of 1.8.”

The representative of Makran also said that “there should be 1,500 hospital beds in this area, but only one-seventh of this figure exists.”

Baluchistan not only lags far behind domestic standards in terms of the number of hospital beds but is also one of the most deprived areas of Iran in terms of the shortage of doctors.

Statistics released by the semiofficial ISNA news agency in September of last year show that there are only 6.5 doctors per 10,000 citizens in Baluchistan province.

This is while, for example, in northern Tehran, there are nearly 70 doctors per 10,000 people, which is ten times more than Baluchistan province.

Baluchistan region needs allocation of budget for the construction of medical centers and increasing the number of active doctors.

In an interview with the regime’s ILNA news agency, Saeed Karimi, the treatment assistant to the health minister said that 155,000 hospital beds in the country are worn out.

According to Karimi, ensuring the safety of the country’s hospitals also needs around 180,000 billion rials (equal to $360 million). However, the Planning and Budget Organization has not earmarked any credit for this issue so far.

The negligence of the Planning and Budget Organization, to which this government official has referred, is happening while in numerous documents obtained from the official website of the Iranian regime’s presidency by Iranian dissidents’ group “Ghyam Sarnegouni” (meaning “Rise to Overthrow” in Farsi), show that heavy expenses have been allocated directly to military and security institutions by this organization for the direct suppression of protests at the order of senior government officials.

Baluchistan province, along with its health and medical deprivation, has also faced extensive suppression of popular protests in recent months, and the problem of water scarcity has recently made the situation in this region “enter the super-crisis phase,” a situation that has sparked fresh protests.