It’s a welcome reprieve. Almost unexpected. The famous Lilas maternity hospital, a feminist institution in the heart of Seine-Saint-Denis, will not lower the curtain in June. Its doors will even remain open for at least another year. On April 29, the Regional Health Agency (ARS) granted him an extension of the right to practice for one year, the daily reports on Monday. 20 minutes.
A “non-profit” feminist sanctuary
The maternity ward is regularly threatened with closure. In question a massive deficit of 4.5 million euros and “dilapidated premises remained in their own juice“wrote Release in April. Last cleaver: find a generous buyer by early June or return the keys. But the ARS finally reconsidered its declarations and a procedure linked to the Covid crisis allowed the clinic to be maintained. For a year at least. “There is no deadline – neither in June nor in the months to come – concerning the situation of the maternity ward, which continues to operate with the authorization of the Agency”, says the ARS.
Since its opening in 1964, the maternity ward has become the den of the fight for women’s rights, working against the imperatives of profitability. The Lilacs advocate natural childbirth and place the free choice of women as a prerequisite. A non-profit maternity hospital. Nearly 1,400 babies a year are born within its walls. And 900 voluntary terminations of pregnancy are carried out there on average.
Mobilization on an unprecedented scale
Regularly, its employees – for the majority of women – have taken to the streets in recent months. Other feminists, local residents, future parents, former patients and staff from surrounding maternity wards also joined the various processions, giving an unprecedented scale to the mobilization. A petition, bringing together more than 40,000 signatures, was also launched during the year. Today, Lilas employees say they are especially relieved. Firstly, its director, Myriam Budan, who exclaims at 20 minutes : “We have a year to find a solution and not close!”
Because uncertainties persist. For the head of the place, the situation is not tenable in the long term, the threats of closure still hovering: “We are going to close, we are not going to close, we are going to close, we are not going to close… This maternity is an eternal restart in search of a project.” If takeover offers exist, in particular from the Avec group, they remain well “fuzzy”. Myriam Budan does not want to compromise on her criteria. To know, “take back our culture, keep or even label our name and take over all the staff”, she details. The fight seems far from over.