Between 2019 and 2020, 254 beds were removed and three maternities closed. In 2000, there were more than 20,000 beds in 742 maternities.
Le Monde with AFP
French maternityies continue to lose beds. The number of obstetric beds has passed below the threshold of the late 2020, divided into 478 maternities, according to published figures, Monday, November 29, by the statistical department of social ministries. It amounted to 14,803 beds as at December 31, 2020, compared with 15,057 a year earlier, according to DREES data (Research Branch, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics).
These 254 deleted beds are more numerous than those of the three folished maternities last year, at the Dinan Public Hospital (Côtes-d’Armor) and in private clinics of Albi (Tarn) and Narbonne (Aude), which totaled 43 beds at the end of 2019.
More than 1,300 maternities in the 1970s
The reduction of obstetric capacities is not a new phenomenon: in 2000, there were more than 20,000 beds in 742 institutions. In the 1970s, the maternity number had even culminated at more than 1,300.
Since that time, the “bed use rate” has gone from 12 deliveries to 49 deliveries per year and the average duration of stay decreased from 8 days to 4.6 days, specifies the DREES in its last ” Panorama of health facilities “.
This decrease is not peculiar to maternity trees: thousands of beds are removed each year in hospitals and clinics (- 5,700 in 2020), which, in part, compensate for these closures by creatives in care ambulatory.