For the past few months, midwives have been authorized to vaccinate infants and those around them, to carry out medical abortions and to prescribe work stoppages. New skills that arouse the ire of gynecologists.
Midwives will soon be able to exercise a new skill: perform medical abortions up to the fifth week of pregnancy and prescribe a work stoppage if necessary. For Nicolas Dutriaux, midwife, this new skill is good news for women and their Health care access : “The medical abortion allows patients who have no follow-up at all to have an additional access door, in addition to the general practitioner and the obstetrician or medical gynecologists, to enter a health course.“.
Angry gynecologists
the strengthening the role of midwives is legally part of a decree of June 2, 2016. But these new measures have awakened the conflict between gynecologists and midwives. Some gynecologists have stepped up to express their strong opposition. For their main union, these new skills would harm the medical supervision of women. Worse, there would even be a risk for patients, as explained by Dr Bertrand de Rochambeau, president of the national union of gynecologists and obstetricians of France: “Skills are broadened to a whole body of trades that have not received any training in general. There are midwives in orthogenic centers who are very well trained and efficient. For these midwives, there is no problem but the decree extends the competence to all midwives“.
Competent midwives for medical abortions
For the Council of the Order of Midwives, these attacks are unjustified: “To say that midwives are not trained is wrong. And the internal squabbles sow doubt in the minds of women“, regrets Marie-Josée Keller, president of the National Council of the Order of Midwives, “while both, doctors and midwives, have skills, are trained for. These skills are enshrined in the health code. Everything is legal“. Far from the controversy, midwives now meet all the conditions of the decree to perform medical abortion. With this professional prescription, they will be able to recover the medication needed to perform abortions in a few days.
