The 335th Night of Memory - 5

Health Defenders

Sepideh Kholoosian
Translated by M. B. Khoshnevisan

2022-10-4

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 fifth narrator of the show was Hojjatoleslam Ali Aghdaee who after expressing his condolences on the occasion of the martyrdom anniversary of the head of the Shiite School, said, “On behalf of all jihadists, I thank the medical staff for working hard and allowing us to be by their side. We have been doing jihadi work for years, but this is not our work style. That is, during floods and earthquakes, we go to the affected areas or do something in deprived areas. Our work is of this type. We have a Jihadi center called Baqiyatallah Jihadi Headquarters. When this happened and the pandemic spread, the custodian of the seminary told me to take the jihadi camp to the hospital. I said, “I don't think anyone will come in this situation”. Even before we want to take the group to the flood or earthquake camp, we do advertising work for a while. He said, “God bless you. You say”. I left a message in the group, but I kept telling myself that no one would come, and anyway, this task has been removed from our shoulders. But with a small message that I posted on the seminary channel, I saw that out of about 200 religious students who were the channel’s members, a hundred students registered in one day. I said to myself: What a strange thing happened! Even in floods and earthquakes, we took about fifty people. How are hundreds of religious students registered for this pandemic?”

The narrator continued, “Anyway, these people registered and we looked for a hospital to start our cooperation. Thank God, at Baqiyatallah Hospital, the medical staff like Dr. Samadinia, Dr. Delavari and Mr. Yousefi let us come into the ward. On the first day, the person in charge of the human resources of the hospital said to me: Have you come to give advice or to preach? I said: No, we have come to help. He said: What do you want to do? I said: We will do anything. He said: Do you do washing? Do you do the transfer? I said: I don't know what you are talking about, but if we can do something, we will do it. The religious students left and started. One group did screening, one group did the washing, and one group was trained to teach the corona patients what to do after hospitalization. A group followed up on patients' conditions at home, a group did missionary work and talked to patients, and in short, great things were done that you saw”.

In continuation, the narrator said, “We had a sister there who along with her husband helped us and was in charge of our sisters. One day, one of the sisters called me and said, “Haj Agha, do you know that our head who has come with her husband is pregnant?” I said, “No. I didn’t know. Why has she come with this condition?” I asked for her husband and said, “This lady is pregnant and works in the hospital. Why did you bring her? It is harmful for her”. But he said, “The blood of my son is not more colorful than the blood of Mohsen (PBUH). Let her work.” Although we sent her away and didn't allow her to stay, the volunteers kept working like this”.  

The narrator continued, “Since we had gone to work in the hospital, the seminary was also closed and we had been quarantined there. There were about fifty or sixty religious students who stayed in the seminary. There, unlike the usual days when we had religious lessons and such programs, on corona nights we played mafia games or special games to maintain the students' morale, and in general, the atmosphere of the place, which was a holy place, had turned into a pantomime room that we played there to change the mood of the volunteers; because, for example, a religious student would visit a sick person and get along with him or her for a day or two. But once, it was announced that you should come and wash him or her ceremonially. In this situation, the spiritual mood was very disturbed. In addition, some doctors, nurses and hospital officials said, “You brought spirituality here; but many times we were the ones who got spirituality from them”. There was a brother beside us over there who, unlike us who were all religious students, was not a religious student and he came with us in that atmosphere at the request of a friend. He was one of the naughtiest guys. So much so that, for example, if I was looking for him, I should have found him in one of Tehran's coffee houses. In the hospital, a 15- or 16-year-old boy named Abulfazl fell ill. The nurses organized a ceremony to pray for him on the 40th day. Our guys also went and sat next to them. At night, they would come and sit in the seminary and we would pray for him collectively. When this Mr. naughty (!) was placed in this spiritual atmosphere, he changed so much that today he is doing his works to become a member of IRGC. This spiritual atmosphere of the hospital and the medical staff made him become a guard of the Islamic Revolution and his condition changed completely.

To be continued …