Trade unions CNV, NU’91, FBZ, AVV and FNV want the government to release extra money so that employees can receive a pay increase. The employers, united in the Birth Care Trade Organization (Bo Geboortezorg), agree with this.
According to Feli Escarabajal of the FNV trade union, thousands of families were in danger of being left without maternity care last summer. “But an agreement between health insurers and maternity care organizations ensured that everyone could receive care. However, fewer hours of maternity care were provided,” she says.
“Very often it was limited to the minimum of 24 hours, the number guaranteed under the Health Insurance Act. But normally you get 46 hours of maternity care for bottle feeding and 49 hours for breastfeeding.”
E-consults and birth hotels
According to Escarabajal, the need was particularly great in Twente and Brabant. “Naviva Kraamzorg has tackled the problem by introducing e-consults and Lunavi in Brabant has set up birth hotels.”
There are currently 1,000 vacancies that cannot be filled. According to the unions, maternity caregivers cannot or hardly take any vacation due to the shortage of colleagues. The workload is also said to be enormous and absenteeism due to illness is 10 percent.
Sheila Brenth has been working in maternity care for 28 years and recognizes the signals outlined by the unions. “Things are not going well in maternity care. Many colleagues are leaving. We do a lot more work with fewer people,” she sighs.
“Many colleagues are moving to childcare, nursing homes and home care. Or they are leaving care, because you earn better almost everywhere. My 24-year-old son is a production worker in a cookie factory. He earns better than me after 28 years in maternity care .”
Sheila earns more than 18 euros gross per hour and sees that many starting colleagues are below the minimum wage. “This is due to the on-call shifts, where we only get 11.44 euros for 8 hours,” she explains.
“We only get paid for the work we do with a family. But for the birth of a child we have on-call shifts of sometimes up to three days. During that time we cannot do any other work.”
Past
Anne Wever gave birth on Sunday, October 28 and came home on Monday afternoon. She knew that she would receive fewer hours of maternity care at home from Naviva Kraamzorg. “For me, this is achieved through maternity care at home and some e-consultation. From Tuesday to Saturday we had about five hours a day.”
In total, Anne and her husband received four e-consultations, where they could ask their questions. “On the second day of maternity care, the baby was not doing well, a lot of spitting up and difficulty maintaining the temperature. There was no physical maternity care at that time, but the e-consultation helped us through it.”
Navina maternity care is flexible enough as an organization to deal with staff shortages with e-consults. “But many other organizations have no financial resources and are in danger of collapsing. We have been talking to employers for some time about a structural wage increase, but there is no room for that. The ministry now really needs to release extra money, otherwise the maternity care as we know it is quickly becoming a thing of the past.”
2023-12-22 17:19:21
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