Dr. Aïssatou Barry is an oncologist in Conakry, Guinea. Trained by Solthis as part of the SUCCESS II project, she tells us about her vocation, her daily life, and her hopes for the future.
When I was young, I saw my sister fall ill. We didn’t know what she had, as we lived far from Conakry. We sent her to Senegal, but she died of cancer. It was while studying medicine that I made the connection between my sister and what she had. Now I am a cancer doctor at a screening center in Conakry. My days are filled with emotions, especially when I have to announce a cancer diagnosis. It’s hard when women arrive with advanced cervical cancer. Yet screening is so simple: it’s free, it detects the DNA of the virus responsible, and it allows us to treat lesions before they become cancerous.
With Solthis, I was trained to become a national trainer. One of the training modules that made an impression on me was self-gynecology. In Guinea, women don’t know their bodies. But to know that something is wrong, you have to know yourself, you have to love yourself. Now I can train other caregivers to raise awareness, screen for, and treat cervical cancer. And it’s a relief for me when I can screen, monitor, and tell a woman that she is cured. I wait for that moment when she thanks me—with a smile, a word, sometimes tears—it’s something that can’t be quantified.
It’s hard to imagine that there are still many women who don’t know that this screening exists, that it’s free. So I talk, I raise awareness, because every woman should come for screening, to reassure themselves that there is nothing wrong, to save their lives, to avoid suffering for their families and financial hardship later on. So that no sister, no woman, dies like my sister.
