Without reform of the perinatal care system, it is going “to shipwreck”, alert in concert, the French Society of Perinatal Medicine (SFMP), several learned societies and an association of users who are appealing to the government on Saturday.
“It is imperative to rethink and reorganize our perinatal care system, because, today, all the indicators are red”, alarmed the SFMP in a column published by The world.
Children dying, maternities closing
The observation is based in particular on the worrying increase in infant mortality over the last decade, which places the country in 25th place in Europe, when in 2012, France was in 2nd position.
“When we know the situation of maternity wards, how can we not make the link between these alarming indicators and the deterioration of working conditions? ask these doctors and users.
A few days after the publication in the press of the conclusions of a report presented to the Academy of Medicine which proposes to reduce by 20% the number of maternity wards in France, the authors of the forum call on the public authorities to put an end to their ” inertia” and ask that the perinatal care system be redesigned “in a global, realistic and coherent manner”.
Call for conferences on perinatality
“The technical platforms must be grouped together in better equipped and computerized maternity wards which accommodate several levels of care and offer working conditions allowing patients and their children to be supported in complete safety and in good treatment”, judge the co-signatories.
This “regrouping of technical platforms” which will result in maternity closures “must be accompanied by the multiplication of local perinatal centers (CPP)”, they add.
The SFMP, the other signatory learned medical societies and the SOS Prema user association are calling for the meeting of national conferences on perinatality.
Aware of the politically sensitive nature of maternity closures, they call for an “awareness of the issues by the population” which alone “can make it possible to avoid disaster”.