midwife

Midwifery service celebrates fifth anniversary

Local Journalism Initiative / The Gaspé Spec / October 2, 2024 / gaspe, health, midwife, nelson sergerie

Nelson Sergerie, LJI Journalist

GASPÉ – Accès Sage-femmes Baie-des-Chaleurs highlights the progress made in developing the midwifery service, which was established five years ago.

“There was a citizen mobilization 10 years before the service took shape. A first midwife was hired to develop the service, which was set up in 2019 to provide pregnancy follow-ups,” recalls the organization’s spokesperson, Caroline Hamelin.

The service has caught-on, with around thirty follow-ups each year, representing approximately 10% of births in the Bay of Chaleur area, quite high compared to the Quebec average of 4%. “The service is very popular. The objective in Quebec was 10% while it is at 4%,” notes Ms. Hamelin.

“People are very satisfied with the service. Sometimes, there is a waiting list because the demand is high,” illustrates the spokesperson.

According to the organization, a stabilization phase is necessary to maintain the service.“There’s a certain amount of turnover due to hiring conditions, which is also the case across Quebec, and there’s also the distance from major centres. There’s also a minimum number of midwives needed to avoid a break in service so that people can choose where they want to give birth. Two midwives are required to have a home birth. On-call midwives are needed for that,” says Ms. Hamelin.

There’s a strong possibility of offering a place to give birth outside of a hospital centre, but the volume of births in the Gaspésie does not allow the creation of a Birthing Centre. “It’s the number one choice for families where it’s available as a place to give birth. In the Gaspésie, 70% of families say it would be their first choice if there was a place outside of a hospital,” says the spokesperson.

Accès Sage-femmes is monitoring the development of a birthing room in Gaspé with interest. “There are different regions that are working on developing a birthing room outside of a hospital. It has to be a model that takes into account the regional reality. We’re looking at what’s happening elsewhere to try to find a model that could work in our situation,” says Ms. Hamelin.

Currently, the service has two midwives and a midwife who coordinates the service. At one point, there were four midwives in the Bay of Chaleur area. “The goal is to have enough midwives to be able to offer the service (to everyone who wants it),” concludes the spokesperson.

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A midwifery birthing room in Gaspé

Local Journalism Initiative / The Gaspé Spec / September 18, 2024 / gaspe, health, mason de la famille, midwife, nelson sergerie

Nelson Sergerie, LJI Journalist

GASPÉ – Gaspé’s Maison de la famille Parenfant will be the first facility of its type to have a birthing room. Since the number of births in the Gaspé Peninsula does not justify the creation of a birthing centre, the Maison de la famille has come up with a solution to offer the service itself.

“It is indeed a version adapted to the Gaspésie and Côte-de-Gaspé region,” says Parenfant coordinator Marie-Andrée Nadeau.

The current Maison de la famille will be expanded, essentially doubling its space to include a birthing room, labour room and a new large multipurpose room. This project will enhance services already offered for the past three years and is the second phase in developing midwifery services in the Côte-de-Gaspé.

“It consolidates other activities. For three years, we have offered the social perinatal service including pregnancy monitoring with a medical team at the Maison de la famille. Now we are adding services to offer births in the birthing room and a labour room in which couples living further away in the Côte-de-Gaspé can come and spend the first stages of childbirth before going to the hospital,” explains Ms. Nadeau.

“That’s what we want in the Côte-de-Gaspé MRC to have a team as large as in the Bay of Chaleur, to offer complete midwifery services including births in a birthing room,” she says.

A job posting for a midwife is listed on the Gaspé Peninsula CISSS (Integrated Health and Social Services Centre) website. The project is innovative as it does not exist elsewhere in Quebec.

“We hope it will set a precedent for remote regions like ours,” says the coordinator. This offers families the chance to give birth with midwives in a neutral place, outside of a hospital environment.

“Since the arrival of the social perinatal service, the CISSS has always supported it and discussions are going very well for the expansion,” says Ms. Nadeau.

The services continue to be appreciated by the population and the addition of services will meet a need.

“That’s what we saw in the two surveys that we conducted a birthing room, a service that does not exist at all; and a labour room, for families further from the Côte-de-Gaspé; and a large room will meet many of the demands because we will finally be able to offer collective cooking activities and we will be able to increase the number of people participating per group with the expansion,” the coordinator asserts.

The $1.2 million project is funded by partners, and a public fundraising campaign will be launched in October. Plans are advanced, and construction is expected to begin in the summer of 2025 with an opening projected for the winter of 2026.

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