The lack of professionals in Lleida forces families wishing for a home birth to rent temporary housing in Barcelona. This extreme measure arises as the only way to guarantee the assistance of a midwife during childbirth.
Leyre Estallo, representative of the Official College of Nurses of Lleida (COILL), explained yesterday in the city the seriousness of the structural deficit. We need at least 120 more midwives in this territorial demarcation alone to cover current demand.
The COILL estimates the deficit at 10,000 professionals at the state level
The professional body has presented a report that audits the state of the Obstetric and Gynecological Nursing specialty in Catalonia. Although this figure has a statutory professional category, its real recognition within the healthcare system is minimal according to the analyzed data.
The situation in Lleida reflects a negative trend that is spreading throughout the Catalan territory and the rest of the State. Estallo detailed that the shortage amounts to about 2,000 specialists in Catalonia and reaches the figure of 10,000 in the whole of Spain.
Public training calls do not manage to reverse this trend. Only five places are offered annually in Lleida for residents of this specialty. The COILL considers this figure clearly insufficient to renew the staff and attend to the growing population.
This scarcity results in evident territorial inequalities. Users who opt for home birth in the province of Lleida cannot find available professionals. They must travel or reside temporarily in Barcelona to access these private services.
The Arnau de Vilanova hospital premieres individual delivery rooms
Faced with the staffing crisis, public infrastructure has undergone recent improvements. The Arnau de Vilanova hospital has inaugurated the first individual rooms dedicated to the preparation and development of childbirth.
These new spaces replace the old common room. That facility had eight shared beds, a model that the health profession had been criticizing for years for its lack of privacy and comfort for pregnant women.
The referee recalled the management carried out with the institutions to achieve this change. We went to Parliament to ask them to change the infrastructure that had become totally obsolete and it is already done.
"Women are already enjoying this new space" - Leyre Estallo, representative of the COILL
The professional highlighted the collective's satisfaction with the achievement of this objective. Families have shown their gratitude for the improvement in care conditions during the birth process at the public center.
Estallo affirmed that they are very satisfied to have achieved it for the families. The new room layout allows for more personalized care and respects the privacy of the mother and her companion.
The contrast between the physical improvement at Arnau de Vilanova and the lack of human resources in the non-hospital setting marks the health news in the province. While the infrastructure advances, professional coverage continues to fail to guarantee universal access.
The COILL report now serves as a basis for demanding extensions in training fees. The entity claims that administrations should increase the number of MIR places for obstetrics nursing in the next calls.