Midwives denounce that the shortage of professionals in all areas of care puts the reproductive health of women at risk

ÁNGEL M. GREGORIS.- Taking care of women throughout their reproductive lives is one of the main functions of midwives, who denounce a shortage of professionals and ask the administrations to promote this figure clearly and with the creation of more EIR positions. To analyze and debate the situation, the representatives of midwives in the General Nursing Council and the 52 provincial colleges have met and warn that the lack of these professionals in the National Health System puts a good quality of life at risk female reproductive.

“We accompany women throughout the reproductive process and not only during childbirth and puerperium. Administrations must be aware of this situation and must not turn a deaf ear to the lack of professionals. This scenario of scarcity can relegate us to working exclusively in the delivery room, which often seems to be the only place that falls within our competence. Nothing could be further from the truth, we have regulated all the functions to help and accompany women for many years”, points out Montserrat Angulo, president of the Alicante College of Nursing and midwife member of the CGE.

Marisol Montenegro, substitute member and vice-president of the College of Pontevedra, expressed the same line, stressing the need to promote personalized care during childbirth and not forgetting that midwives should be in Primary Care. “We have very strong competencies in childbirth care, in which we must achieve 'one to one' (one midwife per woman), but it is often forgotten that we do not only work in the delivery room. In Primary we have a very wide range of attention to the sexual and reproductive life of women, which includes adolescence, contraception, pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum, menopause... In short, it is essential to put on the table the number of midwives that there are currently, those who are going to retire and see how many women of childbearing age there are in order to calculate the deficit we have”, explains Montenegro.

During the meeting it was agreed to prepare a report to send to the Ministries of Health and Universities so that they know the situation and increase the number of training places in the next calls. “There are studies that say that women are much more satisfied, care is more efficient and better health results are obtained when they are treated by a midwife in terms of their reproductive health. We have a plus in training that women demand and the teaching units must also be aware of it when deciding how many places they request from their autonomous communities so that in future calls they get the maximum possible ”, Angulo specifies.

Retirement

According to them, this shortage is one of the main problems that the profession faces in the short term because a high retirement rate is estimated in the coming years. “Compensation measures must be sought while specialists continue to be trained. In these meetings we will look for ideas and proposals to see how we can improve in the coming years”, says Montenegro.

The president of the CGE, Florentino Pérez Raya, has fully agreed with the demands of the midwives and considers it essential to bet on this figure. “The administrations cannot take a profile on this matter and must be aware that the lack of midwives puts the health of all women in our country at risk. We must increase the number of EIR places to improve the ratios of midwives and solve a shortage that will increase much more in the coming years”, stressed the president of the more than 325,000 nurses in Spain.

In addition to the lack of professionals, midwives have also discussed the need to address nursing prescription in this area. “We have analyzed the information we have and we want to contribute all our knowledge so that the protocols and guides that are being prepared are as complete as possible”, explains the substitute member.

On the same day, the members of the CGE also met with the president of the Spanish Association of Midwives (AEM), Rosa Plata, and the vice-president of the Federation of Associations of Midwives of Spain (FAME), Daniel Morillas , to get to know their work up close and point out possible lines of joint work.