On the benches of the Toulouse midwifery school, the start of the school year took place in a half-empty amphitheater. “It was a real shock. recalls Christine Amiel, director of the midwifery department. We had twenty-eight places, fourteen were not filled, it had never happened. » This school is not the only one that has not filled up; at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, nearly 60% of places have not been allocated. And throughout France, 20% of reception capacities have not been filled.
A finding that is far from the objective of increasing the number of professionals trained by 20% thanks to the reform of the first cycle of health studies in 2020 and the new PASS system (specific health access course) and LAS (licence with access option health). The latter would have rather provoked “a huge lack of visibility” according to Loona Mourenas, spokesperson for the National Association of Student Midwives (ANESF). “The reform was neither well understood nor well integrated by the students”, corroborates Véronique Lecointe, director of the school of maieutics of Montpellier. And by increasing the number of places to be filled in medicine, it has had a perverse effect: students have turned more towards this sector and have abandoned midwifery.
However, the reform alone cannot explain these figures. “We are facing a multifactorial crisis of attractiveness of our profession”, notes Isabelle Derringer, president of the order of midwives. On the ground, conditions continue to deteriorate. “There is a loss of meaning. Midwives have the impression of no longer being able to ensure the psychological and physical safety of women. There is an ever-increasing demand for profitability, and, combined with a lack of staff, the workload is disproportionate, while the salary does not follow”, she laments, expressing alarm at the many departures of active midwives. “The crisis is unprecedented in the profession, and this has a direct impact on the experience of students”continues Isabelle Derringer, also director of the Nantes school of midwives.
According to Anesf, in 2018, seven out of ten students reported suffering from depressive symptoms. Four years later, things are no better. Valentine (the first name has been changed), a third-year midwifery student at a Parisian university, remembers that her second year of study was synonymous with disenchantment: “I asked myself: ‘am I continuing in studies that hurt me so much psychologically?’ »
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