The 335th Night of Memory - 2

Health Defenders

Sepdeh Kholoosian
Translated by M. B. Khoshnevisan

2022-9-6

The 335^th program of the Night of Memory was held in the Sooreh Hall of the Art Center on Thursday 5^th of Khordad 1401 (May 26, 2022) attended by the physicians and the staff of the health defenders and hosted by Davood Slaehi. The families of the martyrs of health defenders, the medical health staff and a number of volunteers in the area of health were present in the ceremony, talking about the memoirs of the breakout and ascension of the corona pandemic.

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The second narrator was Mr. Alireza Moradi, who spoke about his memories of the corona virus days at Baqiyatollah Hospital: I am a nursing expert and cardiac perfusionist, and during the corona virus, I was working in the corona virus special care department, especially during the first to third peak. We have different memories from that part, which may be bitter or sweet; but definitely the wish and request of all my colleagues and co-workers from God is that these days will not be experienced again.

The memoirs that I want to tell you goes back to the presence of a patient who was very dear to the medical staff working in the Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit of the hospital. There was a cleric in his thirties - the same age as us - and a doctorate student in the Principles of Jurisprudence, who had severe shortness of breath and a clear lack of oxygen. He had a very high public relations and very sweet communication and very penetrating words, and it cause a relationship beyond the relationship between nurse and patient was established between him and us, and for this reason, each and every hard breath of that dear person was really painful for us. Thanks God, his conditions improved in the first few days, in a way that we were preparing the conditions to transfer him from the special ward to the regular ward.

The narrator continued: These preparations continued until we encountered the night of the birth anniversary of Imam Zaman (may God hasten his reappearance). Since I try to have religious activities, I say this openly and frankly that it has always been difficult for me to be inside the hospital during the nights of religious ceremonies. I try to schedule those nights so that if possible to participate in religious ceremonies rather than staying in the hospital. But that night of the birthday, the programs were not provided and my friends and I had to be in the ICU with this cleric.

Moradi continued: Along with the medical staff, many loved ones from among the people came and did Jihadi activities and served the Covid patients. These loved ones had nothing to do with management and positions. A range of friends who were always with the treatment staff were Jihadi clerics who were divided and did different things. Some of them helped in distributing food to the patients, some of others accompanied the service workers in disinfecting the hospital surfaces, and activities like this were carried out. On that night, one of the clerics had intended to go to each of the wards from the lower floor of the hospital and start singing and eulogizing in praise of Ahl al-Bayt. When he arrived at our ward, and performed the singing, at the request of this cleric who was our patient, he was arranged to change the atmosphere a bit and mourn in praise of Hazrat Zainab. The atmosphere was changed to morning for Imam Hussein and Hazarat Zainab. It was very interesting that on the same night, one of the patients they brought to us was a Defender of Shrine who was infected with Covid and was suffering from shortness of breath. That night, for me, who wanted to be in religious groups that night, the atmosphere was set in such a way that a sincere and honest group was formed inside the ICU. We stopped for a moment along with all the friends who were busy with their own work and gave our hearts to that honorable cleric and found the atmosphere to be a religious one.

The narrator continued: "Unfortunately, this patient's condition worsened from the next day and he needed the ventilator." He actually suffered from a pulmonary embolism that many may have heard of. The patient, who was supposed to be transferred to the normal ward, unfortunately died under the machine. The families of these patients could not come to visit, and in the hospital wards, carrying cellphones is often restricted; but we were not too hard on these patients, because on the one hand, although these patients had limitations, on the other hand, having connection with the family helped them a lot. This cleric also had a cellphone and sometimes had a video call with his family. Truly, the heart of every one of us ached from the restriction that had been created between this nobleman and his children. It passed and he left this word two or three days later in complete disbelief. On the 40th day of his demise, when we were in contact with his family, they sent us a clip, the scenes of which he secretly filmed some of our activities in gratitude. One of our daily activities was that when the guys took over the shifts and patients in the morning, they recited a page of the Holy Quran as a blessing and then started their work. Throughout the film, the cleric's weary breathing can be heard completely in the background, and it still hurts us a lot. God willing may the souls of all deceased patients and health defenders be happy.

At the end of his remarks, the narrator said, “I am very grateful to my friend and brother, Mr. Ajam, who, since the beginning of the Supreme Leader's order to document the memories of Corona, I have closely witnessed his efforts in collecting these memories”.

To be continued ...