The main support of Dutch pregnancy services, which led to the fact that the Netherlands will be recognized by the world leader in postnatal assistance, is in danger, as the country’s health unions warn.
The Netherlands have long been proud of their unique system Kraamzorg (Attention of motherhood), by virtue of which the assistant goes to the house of the new family within eight days after birth to take care of the mother and the child.
But on Tuesday, five healthcare unions will present a manifesto and a request from almost 15,000 signatures in the Hague. They warn that the lack of labor and the competence of other healthcare works put the system in a crisis.
The petition asks that the future of good Kraamzorg For all mothers and newborn from the Netherlands.
Trade unions want a specific representative of the ministry and the best salaries, including the “waiting time” during which the persons who care should be available in the event of the birth of children, but will receive about 11.50 euros per shift of eight hours, not counting taxes. A typical 130 -hour contract per month includes the expectation from 244 to 265 hours, according to the FNV trade union.
“Last year there were 500 families without a maternity assistant,” explains Daniel Vervin, assistant Krenmen, not far from Amsterdam. “And the forecast is that this increases until 2034, only 10 years to 37,000 families without Kraamzorg”
Lack of staff and greater pressure
Marloes Kortland, from the CNV Union, claims that the system Kraamzorg Support for new parents, children’s health control helps with difficult problems of newborns, such as breastfeeding, is unique and deserves to be preserved.
“We are the only country that offers this departure,” he says. “In the countries of our environment, women remain much longer in the hospital, but here immediately, maternity assistants immediately care about mother and child. But the problem is that the assistants are absent, the working pressure is growing, and each time who leaves more people. ”
As indicated Kraamzorg This requires “great flexibility, because you never know when the child is born … and if the same, there is a family, it is very difficult to unite both things.”
Almost every seventh child was born at home in the Netherlands, and in these families the assistant is present with the midwife. In a hospital or pregnancy, women usually get an extract for several hours, and then the wizard goes every day to control the mother and the child. The system, mainly paid by medical insurance, offers from 24 to 80 hours of attention.
But in periods such as the summer holidays, they fail, says that the deputy green and eximatron left Elke Golden Tikhelman. “If there is a peak of childbirth in the region, it can be tiring that pregnancy assistants organize a schedule, and sometimes parents receive less help,” he says.
Despite the vital, pregnancy work is complex and “unattractive” from an economic point of view. “Like care for older people, this is a very poorly paid job,” he says.
But Verveen – which indicates that in three years she saved the girl only 24 hours from suffocation and helped 200 families – believes that the profession has a value that goes far beyond income. “There is something magical in the life of motherhood,” he says. “You help the family start a new life.”