They have been on strike since October 22 at the maternity hospital of the Victor-Pauchet health group in Amiens, in the Somme. About twenty midwives demonstrated on Monday to demand an increase in salaries and staff. “We are all in distress,” explains Cécile Marton, midwife at the clinic. We no longer have the human resources to do our job properly today. “She also denounces a management deaf to” the vital risk that our working conditions pose to patients “.
The demonstrators received the support of union activists and the deputy for the Somme, François Ruffin (related to LFI), present on the spot. “Earning 2,000 euros at Bac +5, and soon Bac + 6, it’s not normal,” he lambasted.
The State “has all the cards in hand to stop this crisis”
“I remind you that it is the State which sets the prices, which trigger the health policies,” said for his part the CEO of the health group Victor-Pauchet, Stéphan de Butler d’Ormond, protesting an “excellent care for women who give birth ”in its establishment. The State “has all the cards in hand to stop this crisis. What I deplore and denounce today are these health policies which underestimate everything that is done in a maternity hospital, ”he added.
France has around 23,000 active midwives, 97% of whom are women, who work mainly in hospitals and clinics. Since the beginning of the year, they have already taken to the streets six times to demand more staff and better recognition of their profession, attached to paramedical functions such as nurses and secretaries, while it is included in the code of public health as a medical profession.