Health: Lack of maternity, a matter of life or death
The ongoing dismantling of obstetrics has continually pushed women away from maternity wards. To combat its effects, from feelings of relegation to rising infant mortality, a bill advocating a moratorium on the closure of small facilities is to be examined this Thursday in the National Assembly.
Maternity wards are disappearing, and with them the dignity of their territories. In fifty years, France has lost three-quarters of these facilities. These closures were initially justified, from the 1970s to the end of the 1990s, with undeniable results on the safety conditions surrounding childbirth. Then, in a second phase, from the early 2000s, they continued unchecked.
Without thinking about the territorial network, with the only goal being a threshold logic below which a maternity unit must close (300 births per year), the haemorrhage has created obstetric deserts , massively removed women from public service establishments, and installed, in the areas affected by the closures, an immense feeling of downgrading.
"When a maternity ward disappears, a region prepares to die ," observes Patrice Joly, Socialist Party senator for Nièvre, where the last maternity ward is under pressure. "When we no longer allow births in a region, it's because we no longer believe in it, in its inhabitants, or in its local economic potential. Childbirth is not just a medical procedure; it's also a political, social, and economic issue."
Yet, the bleeding could...
L'Humanité
