The midwives “set up in town, and they desert our maternities”, alert this Tuesday, June 7 on franceinfo Joëlle Belaisch-Allart, president of the National College of French Gynecologists and Obstetricians (CNGOF). Nine unions and hospital collectives are organizing a day of mobilization on Tuesday, to demand wage and staff increases.
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The head of the gynecology-obstetrics department of the Four Cities Hospital Center in Saint-Cloud (Hauts-de-Seine) believes that there is a lack “thousands” of midwives in France and those who are already in post “choose” of “to move towards other activities, towards family planning or towards gynecology”but not in the hospital.
franceinfo: If you had to describe your service, what is it most lacking today?
Joelle Belaisch-Allart: As in all services in France, and not just in the Paris region, we have a problem with midwives. They are a bit fed up with the arduousness of the delivery room and are moving towards gynecology and planning in town. But I’m not blaming them, because it’s exactly the same thing for doctors. The delivery room is hard, tiring and unrecognized work. And this is emergency work. So the staff is turning to other activities.
We are short of midwives. It’s a certainty. After the lack, it is variable according to the size of the maternities. The bigger the maternity ward, the more staff we have. So the more we will try to orient ourselves differently. To refocus activity on the delivery room. But it is really to the detriment of all that is the well-being of patients and the quality of life of staff.
This lack of midwives in France can we quantify it? Are there hundreds or thousands of people missing?
I think it’s in the thousands. In fact, there are midwives, but when they leave school they choose to pursue other activities, family planning or gynecology. They settle in town and they desert our maternities.
It is a question of what? Working conditions, remuneration?
It’s a question of recognition, working conditions, financial recognition, moral recognition, and it’s exactly the same problem for doctors. Labor in the delivery room is painful. It’s a day and night job. This is emergency work. It is not recognized at all, neither for some nor for the others, nor for the rest of the personnel who work in the delivery room. Like general emergencies. And yet, we are an emergency specialty, without receiving all the bonuses that go with it.
Is it a question of generation? The youngest today are not ready to accept what the oldest may have endured?
Yes, there is a question of generation which privileges the quality of life. Whether they are men or women for that matter, we cannot say that it is feminization. It is true that midwives are mostly women and that doctors are becoming more and more mostly women. But that’s not the problem, it’s the quality of life and the generation.
We must make the birth room attractive. Attractive through financial recognition. For the moment, we are not there at all. And then, you have to stop the gynecological-bashing. There have been a few rare gynecologists who have not lived up to patient expectations, but the vast majority of us spend our time devoting ourselves to them. Gynecology-bashing does not encourage younger generations to come to obstetrics gynecology.
How will the maternities manage the next three or four months?
By refocusing exclusively on the activity in the delivery room. This means that, in the majority of services, we have eliminated everything that is essential to the well-being of patients: childbirth preparation courses, sometimes ultrasounds, sometimes midwifery consultations to concentrate them exclusively on doctor’s consultations.