With the hashtag #CodeRouge, the ANESF Association of student midwives is alert. According to a survey conducted from March to April 2018 in France among 4,000 of their students, seven out of ten of them suffer from depression. The future midwives who responded to the questionnaires (2,430 people) denounce a lack of consideration, as well as too many gynecological violence. Presented this Wednesday, December 5 at a press conference, these results are relayed by France info.
41% of midwifery students believe that their health is “deteriorated” to “severely degraded”#CodeRed
— ANESF (@Anesf_FR) December 5, 2018
A heavy lack of consideration
After medical students, who were nearly one in two at risk of burnout, it is therefore around midwifery students to show their discomfort: 60% point to internships in hospitals or clinics, which can go very badly, in particular because of the lack of consideration from superiors. Anaïs, a fourth-year student in Paris, testifies. After ten internships to her credit, she admits to having the impression of being invisible in the eyes of the holders who sometimes do not even remember her first name, she says, quoted by France info.
“This mistreatment is not tolerable within training structures, within hospitals and in the liberal sector. Benevolence must take over”
-Christine Etchmendigaray, director of the maieutics department at UVSQ-
— ANESF (@Anesf_FR) December 5, 2018
Witnesses to shocking scenes
Midwifery students also face physical violence, which they witness firsthand. Mélanie, also a fourth-year student, remembers a difficult episode. During a delivery where the patient had not had an epidural and after an episiotomy and the use of already painful forceps, the doctor wanted to perform a uterine revision without anesthesia. An operation that causes severe pain, for which the midwives called him to order.
These students have no one to turn to should they witness these shocking scenes. In fact, they have no tutor. A referent that the ANESF is now calling for: it would be a question of creating a status of professional tutor, who can – as for medical or pharmacy students – accompany them during their internship.
We are asking for the implementation of the status of internship supervisor so that students are better supervised during internships. #CodeRed
— ANESF (@Anesf_FR) December 5, 2018
Read also :
- Midwives: 73 countries are in dire need
- An information campaign on the role of midwives
