“Babies do not come by appointment”, Van Den Bergh says. She explains how, in addition to their full-time job during the day, midwives must also be available 24 hours a day, every day of the month.” With a small team, that requires a lot of energy. Even if you are on duty and are not called up, it still takes a lot of energy. energy. You do sleep, but you are aware all the time that you can be summoned.” And that while some women are on call an average of 15 nights a month.
The workload for midwives in Brussels is too high, it sounds. That’s why they stop supervising pregnancies for the next 6 months. “We need 3 experienced midwives right now – which doesn’t seem like a lot – but we don’t want to restart with half a team.” The practice will continue to send couples.
Listen here to the full conversation with Elke Van Den Bergh in “The morning” on Radio 1:
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