In Toulouse, it’s the end of a trying week in maternity hospitals
The midwives’ movement, on strike for a revaluation of their status, led two clinics in Toulouse to close their maternity hospitals this week. Dozens of women have been redirected to other establishments. Report at Toulouse University Hospital.
The first contractions were defined, last Friday, Laurie Lacoste did not panic. The next day, Saturday, October 30, she naturally called the Rive Gauche clinic in Toulouse where she was being followed and planned to give birth.
Except that the strike of the midwives of the establishment led the management to close its maternity hospital. “I was told that there would be nobody to give birth to me, that I had to dial the 15th which would direct me to another maternity hospital. I collapsed, with a feeling of abandonment. It had to fall on me, while all my medical file was in Rive Gauche and that it was necessary to plan examinations for my baby from birth, because of an umbilical hernia spotted during my pregnancy. Surgery was even scheduled in several months, ”says Laurie Lacoste.
On Sunday, the Toulousaine decides to go directly to the emergency room of the maternity ward of the Paule-de-Viguier hospital (University hospital center, Toulouse University Hospital). “I was taken care of right away, regardless of the fact that I had been followed elsewhere. Brune was finally born on All Saints Monday and she was approached following. I am relieved, finally, it was a bad thing for a good “, testifies the young mother who discovered the movement of the midwives on this occasion,” even if, here, in Purpan, nothing shows through “.
Supportive and supportive midwives
The midwives of the public hospital, present at their post, mostly strikers and assigned (on average 35 per day out of the 50 in the service), the movement of their colleagues for a revaluation of their status and better working conditions with including new hires. “We support all our colleagues, whether they are in the public, private, liberal or territorial. We are in the same fight and declare ourselves strikers and be awarded, that counts in the figures ”, underlines Anne-Sophie Liberatore, midwife and executive of the service.
Like Laurie Lacoste, dozens of parturients were redirected throughout the week due to the closures of the Rive Gauche maternity and then that of Croix du Sud.
In Paule de Viguier (Toulouse University Hospital), 30 additional deliveries had to be absorbed. ” But not only. We also felt the consequences in the gynecological and obstetrical emergencies with, for the day of Wednesday, 105 passages against 60 usually ”, explains Dr. Paul Guerby, obstetrician gynecologist, head of the Paule-de-Viguier maternity unit, who notes that certain decisions , taken to be able to absorb this increased activity, were risky. “Delaying an outbreak when the term has expired, is to increase the risk of fetal death”, adds the doctor, in solidarity with the midwives, who recognizes that the management of the Toulouse University Hospital has taken the measure of the situation, as all the strikers who answered the calls. “For three days and three nights, we got reinforcements from midwives and childcare auxiliaries. Emergency contracts were also ready to accommodate doctors or midwives in closed private maternity hospitals. It’s reassuring, ”concludes Dr Paul Guerby.