Biography of the First Female Health Defender Martyr Published
According to the Cinemadrame News Agency, the book “Rouhani-Rad; A Documentary Narrative of the Life of Health Defender Martyr Dr. Shirin Rouhani-Rad” tells her story. Shirin Rouhani-Rad stayed in the hospital day and night to compensate for the shortage of doctors. Weakness and fatigue threatened her immune system and made her fight against the coronavirus more difficult until, due to the severity of her illness, she ordered her own hospitalization and was admitted for 10 days in the same hospital where she worked.
The coronavirus severely affected her lungs, and due to her critical condition, she was transferred to Masih Daneshvari Hospital. There, the illness overcame her, and she achieved martyrdom on March 18, 2020. She was laid to rest alongside the martyrs of the Revolution, the Sacred Defense, and the Defense of the Holy Shrine in the Golestan-e Shohada-ye 10 Imam cemetery in Pakdasht County.
While Shirin was infected with COVID-19 and hospitalized, she told her family, “I have to stay in the hospital day and night due to a shortage of doctors,” so they wouldn’t worry. Every morning, she would call her family to reassure them that she was well, and in the evenings, she would remind her parents to take their blood pressure pills.
Rouhani-Rad is the first female Health Defender Martyr of Pakdasht County in 2021. In addition to serving on the front lines against the disease in the emergency department of Shohada Hospital of Pakdasht, she also collaborated with the Sharifabad Health Center and the Shahid Ashrafi Esfahani Clinic in the same county.
Excerpt from the Book:
As she handed over the heavy suitcase to the airport’s baggage claim, her colleague’s voice, whom she had recently met, echoed in her ears: “Dr., it’s very heavy; let me help.” “Thank you, Dr. Akhtaran. Unfortunately, no matter what I did, it didn’t get lighter.”
Dr. Saber Akhtaran immediately noticed Dr. Rouhani’s unparalleled modesty and shyness upon their first encounter. He found her perfectly consistent with the descriptions he had heard. He took the suitcase from Shirin and handed it to the responsible person: “Don’t be polite. Let me know if you need help anywhere. It’s an honor for me to accompany a skilled doctor like you.”
Shirin lowered her head as a sign of respect and gratitude: “Please, Dr., you are younger and more up-to-date; undoubtedly, these trips will also enhance your work experience.”
Whenever Shirin was among young doctor friends, she tried to boost their self-confidence and self-esteem so that they would be good successors on the arduous path of treatment. Even though she knew that younger and less experienced individuals were usually invited to the deployed teams, she felt no sense of superiority.
They received their boarding passes and walked towards the boarding gate. A relatively long silence fell between them. Dr. Akhtaran asked: “Dr., you’re very quiet!”
Shirin stared at the vast airport area visible through the lounge windows: “I don’t know what to say. I have a good feeling. A special and new feeling that I wouldn’t trade for anything else in the world.”
Her colleague was silent for a moment. Dr. Rouhani’s personality became more prominent in his eyes. With every word she spoke, he understood more of her humanitarian spirit in the form of modesty and shyness: “What a beautiful and eloquent expression.”
As the plane lifted off the ground, Shirin stared down from the window. The higher they ascended, the smaller the buildings became. From up there, there was no sign of people, of their ups and downs, of their claims… She took her gaze from the ground and fixed it on the vast, endless sky that generously embraced all of existence within its loving embrace.
The members of the Red Crescent medical team settled into the Najaf clinic hotel. In this short period, Dr. Rouhani had managed to understand the medical staff in terms of their capabilities and specialties. (Pages 134 and 135)
The book “Rouhani-Rad; A Documentary Narrative of the Life of Health Defender Martyr Dr. Shirin Rouhani-Rad,” written by Masoumeh Hosseini, has been published by Dahom Publications with the support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Tehran and Sepah-e Hazrat-e Seyyed-al-Shohada (AS). It is 258 pages long, includes documents and photos, and is printed in octavo format on newsprint paper with a print run of one thousand copies.
