The 335th Night of Memory - 3

Health Defenders

Sepdeh Kholoosian
Translated by M. B. Khoshnevisan

2022-9-20

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 third narrator of the show was Mrs. Fatemeh Eraqi, a nurse in the infectious ward of Imam Hussein (PBUH) Hospital, and she said about the corona days: When the Corona spread, our ward had turned into an ICU; that means there was no longer an infectious disease ward and our workplace had turned into an emergency ICU ward. We all have many sweet and bitter memories from there. The fact that our patient recovered and went to the normal ward or was discharged was one of the good memories. But there were also many sad memories. One of the saddest memories I have is of a seven-year-old boy whose mother had been admitted to our ward. His mother's breathing was possible by Bi-PAP. The patient had abdominal breathing and his oxygen was supplied by this device. We received this patient with 75% oxygen. She was in the ward for about two or three days, and during that time, as visits were prohibited and we did not allow companions to be in the ward, her son called the ward every day to talk to her. We reported the condition of the patients to the first-degree companions over the phone. This lady was 45 years old. She had lost her husband a few years ago and lived with her mother and child.

The narrator continued: When the boy called us every day, we gave him hope that your mother was much better. The head nurse of the ward had also given her number to the boy so that he could talk to his mother through video. Even when the head nurse was at home, this gentleman wanted to know about his mother's condition. That day we all worked the morning shift. We all got used to this guy's calls. When he called, we told him: Your mother is fine and has improved now. But after one or two hours, this patient showed signs of loss of consciousness and this loss of consciousness became very deep. We quickly announced the code and the patient was intubated.[1] We connected the ventilator and after a quarter to twenty minutes, because this patient had no pulse, we announced the code again.

We started the resuscitation process and although the CPR was carried out for forty five minutes, unfortunately, the patient did not come back. The moment the patient died, we were all sad. Because her son called every day and asked about her mother's condition. After about an hour when she was transferred to the morgue, this boy entered the ward with his grandmother. That moment was a very difficult moment for us. It's so hard to even say it. In a way that we all had tears in our eyes and didn't know how to tell this boy where his mother is. When he went to his mother's bed and saw that his mother was not there, he came and said to our head nurse, "Aunt, where is my mother?" Neither of us knew what to say. We all had a lump in our throat. Our supervisor pulled this child aside and made him realize that his mother had died. This boy cried a lot and finally gathered his mother's belongings and left. But his sadness became a bitter memory for us.

The narrator continued: But we also had very good scenes. There was a young man who was forty years old and had very abnormal tests. But thank God, he left the hospital on his own. I am very grateful to all my dear colleagues, both those who are here and those who are in any position outside of here. I saw in my own shift that some colleagues were in serious condition due to working and mental pressure. The conditions were very bad and we were going through very difficult conditions with those clothes and glasses. I am very grateful to all my dear colleagues and family, and I hope that they and all people will always be healthy, stable and proud.

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In continuation of the show, the host said, “Today, thanks God, we are completely safe during the pandemic and the number of infected and dead people has decreased, maybe it is difficult to recall those days. Today we are talking about the days when our beloved one was in the hospital but we did not dare to visit him or her. The days when we were all afraid of each other, the streets were quiet, no one dared to leave the house, and if we heard that someone had contracted the corona virus and recovered, forty or fifty days had passed since his or her treatment, we were afraid to meet him or her in the open air and at a distance of a few meters.

Those days were very bitter days, and today we are talking about our loved ones who were not dealing with one or two patients in the hospitals, but with a large number of corona patients every day. With the hardships and problems that we will hear from narrators today, we should be able to portray them in our minds and thank God Almighty for having these good days and appreciate the efforts of health defenders.

To be continued …