still a little reprieve and hope at the Lilas maternity ward even if the threat of closure is increasingly strong

The Lilas maternity ward is not really like other maternity wards. It is a building of only three floors, with a wooden facade, in a small, quiet street. On the top floor, there are three delivery rooms, not one more. At 1^er and at 2^th floor, there is a nursery and rooms for families. And then, on the ground floor, there is a room for ultrasounds, another for Family Planning and also, signs on the walls. You can read messages like: “I benefited from techniques and an environment that one does not find in conventional establishments” or, “keep working like this for a long time and for everyone” with the hashtag “I support your fight”.

Precisely, this risks no longer being “for a long time”. A new meeting will take place next December to “finalize” the project and the future of the Lilas maternity ward, in Seine-Saint-Denis. Knowing that the previous meeting, at the end of October, has already led to a conclusion: this establishment, as it is today, no longer has a future. The Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Île-de-France explains that “all stakeholders agree that it is not possible to sustainably organize the maternity activity in Les Lilas”.

Today, in any case, we still give birth at the Lilas maternity ward. We still hear babies crying in the nursery. There are a little over 1,100 deliveries per year here, so it’s a small maternity ward. It is type 1, which means that it is suitable for pregnancies without identified problems, having only an obstetrics service. “There are two midwives for three delivery rooms because we want to take the time to provide support during. It’s also support before and after”describes Corina Pallais, psychologist at the Lilas maternity ward, also a South union delegate.

On the other hand, this is not profitable. The establishment is in deficit of several million euros according to the ARS. It is in this context that the Lilas maternity ward has been under threat of closure for around fifteen years. “We are told that we are going to close but as long as things are not definitive, there is always hope,” assures Céline Le Negaret, a midwife for 27 years here.

“It’s tiring but we won’t give up”

Céline Le Negaret, midwife at the Lilas maternity ward

at franceinfo

However, there, the prospect of closure is becoming clearer. This is what emerged from a meeting at the end of October between certain members of the maternity ward, the ARS Île-de-France and the National Agency for Health and Medico-Social Performance (ANAP). ANAP actually proposes a project in two parts. The Lilas maternity hospital must become a health center for women. “It’s an ambitious project, recognizes Corina Pallais. It would be an infection screening center, also dedicated to endometriosis, there would be pre-natal and post-natal consultations, etc. But n“Our premises would go from more than 2,000 m² to 360 m² and I don’t see how all this can hold up.”

The biggest point of tension concerns the other part of this project: deliveries would no longer take place on the Lilas site, they would be transferred to the Montreuil hospital where the maternity unit is type 3, i.e. -say that it is equipped for high-risk pregnancies. More than 3,500 deliveries take place there each year. “If a patient chooses to give birth in level 1, it is not the same as in level 3 where everything is very medicalized. At the Lilas maternity ward, there is an initial desire to give birth as naturally as possible. possible, even if it is possible during labor to request an epidural, but that is the initial plan”underlines the psychologist.

Lilas’ approach to maternity has been unique since its creation in 1964. It aims to be a place where women can “give birth without pain”underlines Céline Le Negaret: “It’s a feminist approach, that of putting the woman at the center, of giving her the opportunity to understand what she is going through. It would be a huge waste to close this maternity ward because that would mean that we would not gives women more choice to give birth in different places”. This “feminist approach”she is also found in the various portraits hanging on the walls of the establishment: that of Madeleine Brès, the first woman to study medicine, or that of Suzanne Lenglen, the first international woman in women’s tennis.

For Corina Pallais, this transfer to the Montreuil hospital does not suit the staff of the Lilas maternity ward either. “In a level 1 establishment, we have physiological births with midwives who will have to accompany, support the woman during childbirth. Whereas in a level 3, there are many more pathologies, therefore much more ‘medical interventions so it’s not the same choice’, she says. Céline Le Negaret even believes that if it is to do this work, she and her colleagues “will not go to Montreuil”.

This midwife is campaigning for another path. To preserve the Lilas philosophy, even in Montreuil, she explains that it would be necessary “have a few birthing rooms in the hospital where women would give birth with a Lilas team, with independent care”. “The objective is not for the Lilas team to keep its stronghold at all costs, concludes Corina Pallais. The objective is to defend the small structures that patients want.”.