Nurses in Black Chadors

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Iran: Peace Corps Iran : Web Sites for Iran RPCVs: Other Peace Corps women had babies while away, creating extraordinary memories, like those of Carole Nelson, a Bay Area city planner, who went through labor at a hospital in Iran surrounded by nurses in black chadors. : Nurses in Black Chadors

By Jackie Spurlock (c-67-168-211-252.client.comcast.net - 67.168.211.252) on Wednesday, July 14, 2004 - 2:22 am: Edit Post

I would be really interested to hear more about the hospital with nurses in black chadors. As a returned Iran PCV (74-76), I find that hard to believe!

I myself had a baby in Iran in 1977, as did several of my American and Iranian friends. All of us were assisted by doctors, nurses, and midwives who dressed much like medical professionals did in the U.S. at the time (white uniforms, etc). Furthermore, chadors in Iran tended to be flowery at that time, although you saw the occasional black one, just not in hospitals.

My husband unfortunately did one or two stints in Iranian hospitals during our Peace Corps days, with bouts of gastroenteritis and a kidney stone. These were in small town hospitals, and again, I never saw a nurse in a black chador!

Chadors were actually illegal in government jobs in those days, ie, the time of the Shah. (Peace Corps left Iran in 1976, three years before the Revolution.)

Maybe nurses wear black chadors in Iran now, I don't know. But not during the Peace Corps days, which ended in 1976.


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