REMINISCING THE DAY WHEN ... CAROLINE EJANGUE RETIRED
Recapping the career of one of the most remarkable women in the history of the Social Security Institution of Cameroon.
On Thursday, the 4th of January 2018, three days after her 62nd birthday, the NSIF said goodbye to a very special top executive: Mrs Ejangue née Caroline Enangue Priso, then Director of the Essos Hospital Centre (D/CHE).
She received a standing ovation as she entered the conference hall of the Social Insurance Centre for Yaounde-Indépendance, the venue for the Send-Off presided over by the Director General, Noël Alain Olivier Mekulu Mvondo Akame. It was a great mark of recognition for a hard-working woman who had devoted her whole life to her job during her brilliant professional career. A glance in the rear-view mirror of history reveals that the young hospital administrator was recruited on the 10th of September 1984 at the former Medico-Social Centre Essos (“l'hôpital de la Caisse” inaugurated on the 19th of April 1978 and renamed Essos Hospital Centre (CHE) on the 28th of May 1991), of which she became the director and where she spent most of her career. “Thank you, Mr Director General, for allowing me to work in the field for which I was trained,” she said gratefully after the DG had made the following remark: “I don't remember extending a staff’s contract of employment once, and then a second time, since I joined the NSIF and for a good reason…”.
The post of D/CHE suited her so well, but Mrs Ejangue also worked in other structures, as a result of her versatility, such as the Department of General Affairs (Chief of Service in charge of Recruitment between 1987 and 1999), and in the services attached to the Director General, as Technical Adviser in charge of Health Issues, from the 3rd of March 2009 to the 2nd of December 2012. This woman, whose name deserves to be included in the pantheon of women who have had a positive impact on the NSIF, has put her know-how and interpersonal skills to good use, making the CHE a benchmark on the Cameroon health map and a place where cleanliness and rigour at work are the order of the day “You are one of those people whose motto could be work, work, work. I would add, cleanliness, cleanliness, cleanliness and rigour. Our patients have often congratulated us on this, and you have made our hospital the cleanest in Cameroon”, said the DG. What's more, her selfless dedication to work and to producing results helped to reduce the health and social action deficit to minus 223 million CFA francs as at the 31st of December 2016, compared with minus 2 billion CFA francs in 2007. A first in the history of this health facility!
Today, in her peaceful and well-deserved retirement, Caroline Ejangue, like those present at her Send-Off, still remembers the Director General's message: “A pillar of the NSIF is leaving. We're simply letting you go, because you're one of those people we'd always like to keep around to carry out great projects”.
