Sum: due to lack of personnel, a maternity hospital suspends deliveries during the month of June

Bad news for mothers-to-be who were scheduled to give birth at the Péronne maternity ward in the Somme. Given the lack of anesthesiologists, the hospital management decided to close the service “temporarily” between May 30 and July 1. No delivery will take place during this period, due to “a context of high tension on medical personnel at the national level.”

However, Sophie, who lives about ten minutes from the facility, was scheduled to give birth there around June 11. She was eight and a half months pregnant, she thought she would give birth in the nearest maternity ward.

“I’m a little upset,” the mom-to-be testifies into the BFMTV microphone.

“I will have to take the initiative”

Like her, several women will have to go to other maternity hospitals in the region (Saint-Quentin, Amiens, Chauny, Cambrai or Arras, for example). A solution that is not the most obvious, explains Sophie.

“From home to Péronne, I have ten minutes, so it was practical and reassuring,” he argues.

“I’ll have 45 minutes of driving there. So if I have contractions, I’ll have to take the initiative and get out fast enough not to give birth in the car,” continues Sophie.

A maternity ward already closed for the holidays

In its press release, the management of the Péronne hospital specifies that maternity monitoring will continue to be carried out on site. Especially since this situation is not the first, let’s remember our colleagues from France Bleu Picardie. At the end of 2022, for two weeks, deliveries were suspended in the maternity ward… due to a lack of pediatricians.

For Jérémy Fromentin, secretary of the CGT at the Péronne hospital, the lack of anesthesiologists in June and the issue of childbirth is therefore only part of the problem.

“It is the entire operation of the hospital that is in question,” he says. “If there’s no anesthetist, we can’t use the operating room. As a result, that has consequences for the surgical department.”

“It really is the entire hospital that is affected by this lack of personnel,” insists the unionist.