On strike for 3 weeks, the midwives met the Minister of Health. Their movement continues.
“I fully understood your concerns and your request for recognition. This is the sentence launched this Friday morning by Marisol Touraine, Minister of Health, visiting the maternity ward of the intercommunal hospital of Poissy-Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Yvelines). During this visit to one of the largest maternity hospitals in Ile-de-France (4,800 deliveries per year), the Minister met a delegation of midwives on strike. A meeting of this type also took place yesterday, at the end of the great Parisian demonstration of midwives. Yet even though relations with the ministry appear to be improving, these angry midwives continue to strike.
A working group will look into the place of the midwife
Thursday, November 7, after 3 weeks of strike, 6,000 midwives and midwifery students came from all over France to the streets of Paris. These health professionals are notably demanding recognition, by finally achieving the status of hospital practitioner. Indeed, even if the latter exercise a medical profession, they have always had the status of “paramedical”. For this reason, in a hospital environment, 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.). This demand had for the moment been totally ignored by the government.
But yesterday, at the end of the demonstration, the Collective of midwives was finally received by the Minister of Health. And the latter wanted to reassure them: “they will have their place in the national health strategy,” said the press release from the National Organization of Midwifery Unions (ONSSF). Another advance, the minister recognizes them as “medical professional” of first resort. Marisol Touraine suggests that they start a reflection within the framework of a working group to define the place of the midwife regardless of her mode of practice.
This working group would also reflect on hospital midwives and their “status as medical professionals in hospitals”. The first meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 19, the minister announced.
Still no hospital medical staff status
However, even if the Collective is satisfied to see that the Minister has heard this strong claim of the profession, the midwives, on the other hand, have not obtained any assurance on the second claim: a status of hospital medical staff. For this reason, the midwives gathered in the General Assembly voted last night to maintain the strike. “Midwives, salaried and liberal, will remain mobilized throughout France,” the press release concludes. At present, 90% of maternity hospitals are affected by the strike and, including the liberal ones, 70% of the whole profession is following the movement. A strike which obviously disrupts the functioning of maternity hospitals.
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