IranWire:

The war lasted just 12 days, but it took only hours to expose a crisis that had been decades in the making.

As Israeli and Iranian forces exchanged fire across 26 provinces, something unexpected happened in Tehran's hospitals.

Despite treating more than 4,000 war casualties, the capital's medical centers never reached capacity.

The reason wasn't military efficiency or superior planning - it was a mass exodus. Millions of residents had fled the city, inadvertently creating space in hospitals needed for the wounded.

The real emergency unfolded in Iran's smaller cities, the supposed safe havens where refugees sought shelter.

These communities, already struggling with doctor shortages and outdated equipment, suddenly faced populations that doubled or even tripled overnight.

Patients needing dialysis, cancer treatment, or emergency surgery found themselves in towns that couldn't adequately serve their own residents, let alone handle a wartime influx.

"We had no experience managing this kind of situation," said Hossein Karmanpour, head of the Ministry of Health's Information Center, describing the chaos as millions of war refugees fled to smaller cities ill-equipped to care for the sudden influx of dialysis patients, people living with cancer, and pregnant women.

The 12-day war ended, but the underlying crisis it exposed continues.

Go to link