The 335th Night of Memory - 6

Health Defenders

Sepideh Kholoosian
Translated by M. B. Khoshnevisan

2022-10-11

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 sixth narrator of the show was Mr. Mohammad Reza Zolfaqari, the ambulance driver of the Baqiyatallah Hospital who spoke about his activities and encounters during the corona days. He said, " Due to our job, we are more frequent in the streets and sometimes people have humorous encounters with us. During the corona days, when they saw us on the street with an ambulance on which had written "for transporting corona patients", their look was as if they were meeting the covid-19 virus itself with a distance of a few centimeters! At first, it was interesting for me why some people have this kind of behavior and what is the reason? But over time, we reacted to this encounter and laughed, and it was interesting that this laughter changed our mood.

The main story that I want to say is about a man named Hamid. We transferred this Mr. Hamid to the hospital while he was in a very bad condition. After a while, I realized that he is an acquaintance of one of our friends, and because of this, I became friends with him and visited him in the hospital. As Dr. Ainollahi said, due to the fact that we were very involved with the pandemic in the wards, the Baqiytallah Hospital had prepared an environment outside the hospital as a recovery center so that if the patient wants to spend his or her recovery period, he or she is not hospitalized inside the wards. A little later, this man was released from the hospital. I talked to him on the day of his discharge and he said very firmly, "I will try to follow the health protocols so as not to get involved". I recommend this to others.

Five months later, I went back to transfer him due to the corona virus, and we brought him to the emergency ward again in a very bad condition and he was hospitalized. There, I asked him, "Mr. Hamid, you had promised to follow the health protocols. What happened that you got involved again? He said, "Honestly, I was invited to a party and because of that party, both myself and others got involved. But now I regret it a lot". I said goodbye to him and went back to the headquarters. Along the way, a spark struck in my mind; that our whole life from the beginning to the end is like the story of this Mr. Hamid. That is, this length of our life is one night of partying and one night of fun, and many of us are willing to destroy our future and hereafter because of this one night". This incident was very interesting and I think its advice was that we should not simply pass up these short opportunities to make amends, like what happened to the Hamid of our story, and not let it happen again. Because it is possible that every opportunity that comes to us is the last chance to make up for it. We must look back; if we have been given a special power by virtue of our power, good financial status or influence or anything that has been given to us by the grace of God, we must see how we have used it. If God has given us an opportunity, God willing, we will use that opportunity in a good way and change our view a little towards the lower classes and people who are at different levels of society. Perhaps, according to friends, this pandemic rang a bell in our ears that says death and the risk of not using opportunities can be closer to us than anything. My understanding of this story was that I should reconsider the behaviors that I have had or will have.

To be continued…