• Professionals in the perinatal sector are warning of possible tensions in maternity wards this summer in the Toulouse conurbation.

  • Lack of staff, saturation of birthing rooms, decline in the attractiveness of maternity wards due to working conditions are at the origin of the tensions recorded in recent months.

  • Maternity manager, council of the Order of midwives or even unions are calling for a revision of the perinatal decree on the number of staff in maternity wards and for salary increases.

“My motherhood is going to crack”.

It could be the title of a bad current affairs soap opera this summer.

In any case, this is the feeling that animates Toulouse professionals in the perinatal sector as the long summer holidays are looming.

"The staff no longer have the time to take the time to properly, humanely support each patient and her family", deplores the South union of the Toulouse University Hospital, which relayed the testimony of midwives who feel "poor" and " suffering ".

A petition to ask for more resources from the Paule-de-Viguier hospital has already gathered more than 1,300 signatures and points to the regular saturation of the birth rooms of the largest maternity hospital in Toulouse, sized to accommodate 3,500 births each year when it opened nineteen years ago and which now produces 5,200 births.

Paule-de-Viguier is one of the five largest French maternity wards, taking care of complicated pregnancies but also those of women in precarious situations.

And each year, the CHU registration committee is forced to redirect nearly 1,000 women to other maternity wards because they cannot take care of parturients.

Obsolete decrees

"Our conditions are difficult, there is a saturation of the birth rooms, we feel cramped", recognizes doctor Paul Guerby, head of the Paule-de-Viguier maternity hospital, for which expansion work is to be carried out. the study.

The latter is in solidarity with the demands of the healthcare teams, because, like all the establishments in the region, it has to deal with a shortage of staff "rather new and recent".

“There are now vacancies, which did not exist a few years ago.

Before, the student midwives who left the schools almost all came to the maternity ward to practice in the delivery rooms.

Today, a large part leaves in liberal.

On-call jobs are less attractive,” admits this obstetrician-gynecologist who tries to motivate his teams through other projects.

In his service, he knows that he misses at least a midwife, an anesthesiologist and a doctor.

However, it is in order with the decrees which govern the perinatal workforce which date from 1998. “But they are obsolete, since small maternities have closed to concentrate on large structures.

The care has completely changed for more than twenty years.

Patients' requests are moving towards more physiology, they stay longer in birthing rooms,” continues the doctor, who knows that this lack of staff has an impact on the working conditions of midwives.

But refuses to speak of "obstetric violence".

He is all the more worried for the weeks to come as a peak in births often takes place during the summer and as, like any employee, midwives take leave during this period.

But the slightest grain of sand can stop the machine.

Salary increase

“We are going straight into the wall.

We've been yelling at each other for years and nobody hears us.

There is a real problem of arduousness and attractiveness.

The closure of many establishments has led to the consolidation of certain private maternities, with a pooling of resources.

But in the end, often they do more with less and that's how you feel like you're doing a bad job.

Many midwives then prefer to retire, do something else or leave as a liberal, ”notes Maryline Hervé-Gahery, president of the Departmental Council of the Order of Midwives of Haute-Garonne.

She regularly receives testimonials from professionals who had to make a parturient patient wait for five hours and were unable to relieve her with an epidural.

“If midwives no longer go to maternities, public or private, it is because there has been a deleterious national policy for years from the government.

During the Covid crisis we were the forgotten ones.

Today, recognition must come from the government, the 1998 decree must be reviewed and there must be an increase in the number of maternity midwives, as well as a salary increase because they start at less than 2,000. euros per month”, pleads their spokesperson.

And to recall the responsibility of these professionals who "do not count boxes on the shelves" and can be marked for life if the birth goes wrong.

In recent years, she has found that some colleagues, instead of turning to the Liberals, are changing jobs altogether.

“Each year, we have eight to ten deregistration requests, often for changes of department or to follow the spouse.

There, some ask for their permanent radiation at not even 30 years old by fed up.

It's sad because we do a useful job, we are a pivot of public health, ”recalls Maryline Hervé-Gahery who hopes that the profession will be heard before “going to the crash”.

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