The town hall of Apt and the users reacted with great disappointment to the announcement of the closure before the end of the year of the maternity ward of the Apt hospital in the Vaucluse.
More than a few days. As of January 1, 2017, as planned under the regional healthcare organization plan, a local perinatal center will be set up at the Center hospitalier du Pays d’Apt (Vaucluse).
In the Dauphine. com, the cabinet of Dominique Santoni, mayor of the city, reacted strongly to the announcement of the closure “before the end of the year” of the maternity hospital. “This disastrous decision comes at the end of a long and painful series of reprieve, from six months to six months, and ends years of procrastination as to the fate reserved by the Minister of Health for our maternity hospital,” he said. he declared disappointed.
Disgruntled uagers and elected officials
Same story with the committee for the defense of hospital users and the association “Naître au Pays d’Apt“, who has been campaigning for years for the maintenance of maternity. He held a meeting to take note of the ministerial decision and consider the follow-up to be given, in agreement with the users. The chairman of the committee, Dominique Theveniau, is now considering a legal action. “Our lawyer Maître Maillot, immediately warned by telephone, undertakes to file a suspensive appeal to the Court of Nîmes to which we will have an answer in 3 weeks,” he told the Dauphiné.
For its part, the PACA Regional Health Agency tries, in vain, to reassure in explaining that “this local perinatal center will offer pregnancy follow-up consultations, before and after childbirth, for mothers and their newborns. Gynecology consultations will continue on the site of the Pays d’Apt hospital center, within this perinatal center, ”she explains.
For pregnant women who have to give birth, Ars advises them to go to the maternity hospital of their choice, “the Avignon and Cavaillon maternity hospitals being the closest and able to accommodate all parturients in the area”, adds- she does.
As a guarantee, Ars Paca also undertakes to maintain employment on the Apt site. Promises that have obviously not calmed the inhabitants.
Safety, number 1 motivation
Finally, the Agency announces that financial assistance of one million euros will also be provided to the hospital center of the country of Apt in order to enable it to undertake a major renovation operation. But above all the Ars tries to close the debate on the interest or not of maintaining this maternity. She thus recalls that the conditions for taking charge of childbirth had been analyzed by two professors of gynecology-obstetrics and neonatology. And in their report finalized in June 2016, they concluded that there was a need to move to a local perinatal center “for security reasons, especially since the establishment no longer has a tenured obstetrician gynecologist since this summer”.
“Research was actively pursued in order to recruit the medical personnel necessary for a long-term continuation of the activity, but the absence of an application does not make it possible to ensure the quality and safety of care”, concludes the Agency.
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