Hospital tensions, crisis of liberal medicine, lack of nursing staff… The health system is out of breath! Faced with an unprecedented shortage of midwives, maternity hospitals are issuing a warning to the public authorities about their alarming situation. If they are sometimes forced to refuse women about to give birth, it was the death of a baby following a load shedding that upset the caregivers of a maternity hospital in Seine-Saint-Denis.
Shortage of midwives and closure of maternities
Many midwives desert their profession for lack of recognition of their work, general exhaustion and salaries that are still too low. This situation forces some maternities to close their doors. During this time, the rate of births does not weaken.
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Due to a shortage of nursing staff, emergency scenarios are drawn up by already exhausted midwives. “This summer, we are going to be in great difficulty in terms of staff. It is possible that you will arrive at work and be told that we have no more room for you and that we will have to transfer you. in another hospital”announces Ophélie Percheval, midwife at the maternity ward of the Saint-Denis hospital center to one of her patients who is seven months pregnant.
As TF1 reports, “122 out of 461 maternity units report being in major difficulty to accommodate women who will give birth this summer, due to lack of staff”, according to a doctor working with the SAMU of Seine-Saint-Denis. For its part, the association “Santé en danger” informs that maternity wards “declare partial closures (stopping of activities or closure of service)”. These partial closures concern the “closure of pregnancy follow-up consultations, ultrasound, gynecology in establishments and cessation of birth and parenthood preparation courses”. Women about to give birth must then go to other nearby maternity wards, which accept or refuse them depending on the places available.
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Maternities are sometimes forced to relieve parturients, to abandon pregnancy monitoring or even to force women to leave the hospital earlier, after childbirth.
More and more frequent load shedding
Hospitals had already warned of the lack of beds in maternity wards last summer, but the current repercussions are alarming. “As I speak to you, we have five patients who have illnesses that require inducing labor, but we have no place in the delivery room”, explained Professor Stéphane Bounan, on June 16 in Le Monde. For the Saint-Denis hospital, load shedding is frequent, “about twice a week”. That is to say that if the maternity ward is saturated, women about to give birth are sent to another maternity ward which still has places available.
Some load shedding can turn tragic. A Mediapart article testifies to a tragic event, which occurred following the shedding of a pregnant woman. This mother, who was to give birth at the Saint-Denis hospital center, was sent to the Robert-Debré hospital, which refused to take care of her. It was when a third maternity unit finally agreed to receive the mother that the child died, in intensive care, at the Jean-Verdier hospital in Bondy.
This event aroused great emotion among the caregivers of the various hospitals involved. They wonder: what is the reaction of health organizations?
Paradoxical decisions
Other testimonies were collected by Médiapart, denouncing a lack of solidarity on the part of hospitals, particularly the AP-HP, which complains of the “large number of load shedding requests, in particular from hospitals in Seine-Saint-Denis”. Indeed, if the hospital of Seine-Saint-Denis receives a large number of parturients, it asks the SAMU and the firefighters to drive the women to other establishments with reception capacity.
While midwives are sounding the alarm, the Regional Health Agency (ARS) is making paradoxical decisions. Three years ago, the ARS of Burgundy decided to carry out a restructuring within the maternity hospital of Nevers (Nièvre) because it considered that there were too many midwives. But this restructuring led to the closure of the only maternity hospital in the department on April 11. For Guillaume Rameau, one of the maieuticians of Nevers, “it’s the last straw”; many midwives have filed for sick leave, psychologically exhausted following increasingly difficult working conditions.
In short, midwives leave hospitals for a change of profession due to lack of attractiveness, insufficient staff and degraded working conditions. Many of them are now turning to a liberal profession. But, in the meantime, what about the repercussions on mothers and their babies?
Read also: Shortage of midwives: a danger for mothers and babies