On strike for more than three weeks to obtain a real medical status, the midwives demonstrate this Thursday in Paris. A meeting with the Minister of Health could take place.
“J0: The midwives’ march awaits you. We are going to voice our anger which has been mounting for 3 weeks … !!! »Is the last message posted 1 hour ago on the twitter account of the National Organization of Midwifery Trade Unions (ONSSF). With this tweet full of determination, the tone of the demonstration organized this Thursday by the midwives deserves to be given. These health professionals who are demanding recognition in particular, by finally gaining the status of hospital practitioner do not intend to “drop anything in this battle”, as they often repeat. For this reason, nearly 7,000 midwives are expected this morning in the streets of Paris. But for the moment, it is clear that they remain invisible in the eyes of politicians, and in particular in the eyes of the Minister of Health, Marisol Touraine. why actor returns to the reasons for this anger.
Recognition will require medical status
First of all, midwives want a change in status. Indeed, even if the latter exercise a medical profession, they have always had the status of “paramedical”. This lack of recognition by the authorities is also felt in the remuneration of these professionals. “The statute of the hospital public service considers us as bac + 3, but we are paid as bac + 2 and a half, with not even the basic salary which corresponds to a license level. The worst thing is that in reality, we have a bac + 5, with a first year of medicine and a four-year training course that follows to become a midwife ”, explained Caroline Raquin, president of the ONSSF, contacted. recently by why actor.
Midwives perform all acts of normal pregnancy monitoring
But this cry of anger is not just a matter of remuneration. Because in hospitals, midwives depend, for the moment, entirely on their head of department concerning the policy of monitoring the pregnancy of pregnant women.
However, in practice, during pregnancies without complications, midwives perform all the procedures performed by hospital doctors specializing in pregnancy (ultrasound, preparation for childbirth, monitoring, etc.).
A movement supported by the bosses of maternity hospitals
But unfortunately, even today, the president confided that many pregnant women do not even know the broad field of competence of midwives. This is why their main demand is to be placed at the same level as doctors in hospitals, at least when monitoring normal pregnancies. And these midwives are also supported by all the heads of maternity departments of the Public Assistance-Hospitals of Paris (AP-HP) who on Tuesday provided their “unreserved” support to midwives, in strike for three weeks.
90% of maternity hospitals affected by the strike
Indeed, as midwives perform all the acts performed by doctors specializing in pregnancy, it is easy to understand why this strike movement worries the heads of departments to the utmost. With 90% of maternity hospitals affected by the strike and 70% of the entire profession that follows (including the liberal), it is true that this movement is already seriously disrupting the functioning of establishments. On strike lasts in many hospitals, midwives are assigned to minimum emergency service. In this case, they are now only present in the delivery room. In all the other departments, consultations, pathological pregnancies, postpartum, there is no longer any of these professionals available.
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