Shireen Ghorbani Believes In Healthcare For All, And She’s Taking Political Action To Fix A Broken System

Stories of Transformation

In her lifelong career as a public servant, Shireen Ghorbani has witnessed many first-hand accounts of how healthcare operates in the United States and abroad. Shireen's career began in high school, where she participated in two trips to Antigua to help out on construction sites. Later, she took on the roles of educator, activist, and diplomat for the Peace Corps working in Moldova. Today, she serves on the city council for Salt Lake County, Utah. Her primary political focus is improving healthcare systems by making health services accessible to as many people as possible.

When her mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the age of 68, with a prognosis which gave her only weeks to live, Shireen’s world was rocked. A lifelong educator and public servant herself, Shireen’s mother had worked far and wide to improve the lives of everyone she could. Through her mother’s example, Shireen was instilled with the invaluable skills of gratitude and compassion, and the virtues of volunteerism and public service. And thanks to her mother’s understanding of the healthcare system, and her informed preparations, Shireen was able to spend her final days with her mother in peace.

But not everyone in the hospice care facility was so fortunate. Shireen recalls hearing family members in other rooms - there to take care of their ailing loved ones - on the phone with bill collectors, healthcare and insurance companies. For Shireen, this particular undercurrent of injustice had never felt so close to home: politics, capitalism, and the almighty dollar had infiltrated one of the oldest and most sacred tenets in human history: the Hippocratic Oath.

Today, in the midst of a pandemic, we are reminded of how essential healthcare workers are to the prosperity of our world. Medical practitioners in all forms help, heal, and save lives everyday. Whether it's physical healthcare, mental healthcare, or anything in between, Shireen believes that nothing should stand between a human being in need and their right to effective healthcare. But far too often, Shireen and many other Americans believe that corrupt politics and capitalist structures get in the way of people getting the help they need.

In this episode of Stories of Transformation, we discuss how local politics help shape national politics; the lifelong rewards of serving in the Peace Corps and other volunteer work; how the United States’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic is indicative of how ineffective its healthcare system really is; and how the changing administration in the White House does not necessarily signal national unity or meaningful reform, and how we must keep up the fight for equity across the board.
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Credits
Produced by: Joseph Gangemi
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-gangemi-audio/

Digital Marketing & Media by: Katherine An https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-a-91081b56/

Theme music by: Qais Essar
www.therabab.com

Artwork by: Masheed Ahadi
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Episode Music Credits
All music by Philip Daniel Zach
https://philipdanielpiano.com/

"August"
"Trapt"
"Oh, Endless Day"