Fatou Cissé, general emergency supervisor in Fann: “It breaks my heart to leave my children at night”

If we had to choose three adjectives to describe Fatou Cissé, they would without hesitation: courageous, rigorous and talented. Courageous, even twice. First, because she fought against all odds to get where she is today. Then, because she sacrifices herself every night, leaving behind her two children and her husband, to coordinate the emergencies at Fann Hospital.

Rigor is second nature to her. She recalls the character of Rivière in Saint-Exupéry’s “Night Flight”: inflexible with herself, demanding with others, convinced that work comes first. In her eyes, caring is not a simple profession, it is a sacred responsibility that she sometimes takes too seriously, some say, but always with the desire to do well. And then there is talent. Fatou Cissé is a complete caregiver, as gifted as a doctor, with a keen sense of organization and a clinical instinct forged by more than two decades in the field. Having completed her baccalaureate in 1995, she joined the Institut Santé Service in 2002, where she followed three years of training to become a state-certified nurse. Her career began at the Aristide Le Dantec hospital, where she spent seven formative years. She then joined the Fann hospital, first in the pulmonology department for a year, before being assigned to thoracic and cardiovascular surgery as head of the hospitalization division, where she worked for seventeen years.

Since 2017, Fatou Cissé has been the general emergency supervisor in Fann. A position with heavy responsibility, which involves coordinating care, supervising staff and daily management of a service under permanent pressure. Emergencies never sleep. They operate twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And Fatou is the metronome of this fragile machine. Leader of the emergency reception service She organizes services, coordinates teams and ensures the quality of care. From the stretcher bearer to the doctors, including the nurses and even the maintenance workers, everyone is included in his vision of teamwork. A true conductor, she knows that every link counts to save lives. Twenty-two years of service inevitably have an impact on a personal life. Night work exhausts, wears out, unbalances. “As I get older, I feel it less,” she confides. But at the beginning, it wasn’t easy. The house, the husband, the children…and yet, we have to leave. “It breaks my heart to leave my children alone at home, without a nanny, but I have to go to work at night.”

She has experienced many difficult human situations. She sympathizes with her fellow nurses when they come to her with their personal problems. And she almost always finds a solution. One evening, a nurse panics. She has to take her night shift but has no one to look after her child. The major intervenes, reorganizes the schedules, finds a permutation. Fatou Cissé has faced dozens of scenes like this during her career. One of the most significant episodes remains the period of events of 2023. A country in fire and blood, violent demonstrations, dozens of injured people. The nurses present, supposed to be on call for twelve hours, worked twenty-four hours straight. Impossible for others to reach the hospital: no transport, roads blocked because of the riots. Those who were there could neither go home nor even eat.

Yet they held on, treating each injured person with determination, passion and courage. Three nurses left their children home alone, but remained standing, true to their moral oath. In twenty-two years of career, Fatou Cissé knows neither weekends nor public holidays. Sometimes he goes to work and realizes on the way that the streets are empty…because it’s a public holiday. In the emergency room, we do not leave our post until the patients’ situation has stabilized. His dream today is simple, but essential: the construction of an emergency department worthy of the name at Fann hospital. “The current service remains functional”, but according to her, it has become “too narrow, sometimes making patient care extremely difficult”. A promise has existed since 2018, but it is slow to materialize. In the meantime, Fatou Cissé continues to hold the front line, discreet but essential, firm but deeply human. A woman of duty, for whom care is not a schedule, but a mission. She has the status of major, but seeing her in action, she seems to have a higher rank: that of a general.

By Yaya SOW